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Judgment
This order has been prepared while working from home for being signed and communicated to the parties because of the suspension of functioning of DRAT due to spread of Corona Virus (Covid-19) in the entire country. This procedure for the preparation of orders by quasi judicial tribunals and their communication to the concerned litigants in place of formal pronouncement in open Court has been recognised by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in one of its judgments reported as AIR 2008 SC 2594, "State Bank of India and Ors. Vs. S.N.Goyal"(para 19) wherein it was observed that:-
".............While some quasi judicial tribunals fix a day for pronouncement and pronounce their orders on the day fixed, many quasi judicial authorities do not pronounce their orders. Some publish or notify their orders. Some prepare and sign the orders and communicate the same to the party concerned... "
The applicant Rajnish Wadhera has invoked the supervisory jurisdiction of the Chairperson of the Debt Recovery Appellate Tribunal as provided under Section 17-A of The Recovery of Debts and Bankruptcy Act, 1993 and has prayed for issuance of certain directions for ensuring proper functioning of the DRT-I, Delhi and particularly in respect of 'tampering of cause list' of DRT pertaining to S.A.No.85/2010 under Section 17(1) of the SARFAESI Act.
That part of Section 17-A which has been invoked by the applicant Shri Rajnish Wadhera reads as under:-
"17A. Power of Chairperson of Appellate Tribunal. - (1) The Chairperson of an Appellate Tribunal shall exercise general power of superintendence and control over the Tribunals under his jurisdiction including the power of appraising the work and recording the annual confidential reports of Presiding Officers."
The petitioner has invoked the supervisory jurisdiction of the Chairperson of DRAT because according to him the Registrar being the custodian of judicial records of DRT and/or other staff members of DRT-I, Delhi had tampered with the judicial record/cause list of the DRT for the date on which his Company's Securitisation Application(being S.A.No.85/2010- M/s T.W.A. Exports Pvt. Ltd. vs. India Overseas Bank) was listed i.e. 08.03.2019 for disposal of only a miscellaneous application but the matter was taken up on an earlier date i.e. 25.02.2019 on which date not only the miscellaneous application listed for disposal was disposed of but even the main S.A. was also decided against the security applicant without even notifying the security applicant of the date of 25.02.2019 and without giving opportunity of hearing to the security applicant. The security applicant felt aggrieved by the disposal of its S.A. without giving to it an opportunity of hearing challenged the order dated 25.0.2.2019 of the DRT before the Hon'ble Delhi High Court by way of a writ petition. That writ petition(being W.P.(C) No.5261 of 2019 was allowed by the High Court vide order dated 15/05.2019 as the bank also supported the grievance of the writ petitioner that the S.A. had been decided by the DRT without hearing any of the parties. The High Court directed the DRT to decide the S.A. afresh after hearing the parties.
The order dated 15.05.2019 of the High Court reads as under:-
"W.P.(C) 5261/2019
We have heard learned counsels and proceed to dispose of the writ petition.The grievance of the petitioner is that the Debt Recovery Tribunal-I has disposed of the petitioner's Securitization Application No.85/2010 under Section 17 of the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act, 2002, (hereinafter referred to as the "SARFAESI Act") by the impugned order dated 25.02.2019, without any hearing in the said securitization application.
Mr.Bhandari, learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the petitioner had moved an IA No.502/2017. He submits that since the petitioner had deposited certain amounts in response to the notice dated 13.10.2009 under Section 13(2) of the SARFAESI Act, the respondent/Bank was directed to provide details of the outstanding dues to the petitioner within fifteen days. The arguments in the said application were heard by the Tribunal on 30.01.2018 and the matter was directed to be listed for orders on 08.02.2018 on the said application. The proceedings were further adjourned to 17.02.2018 and then adjourned to 07.07.2018. On 07.07.2018, the proceedings were further adjourned to 20.08.2018 and thereafter to 12.11.2018, 22.12.2018 & 22.01.2019. The matter was further adjourned to 15.02.2019 and thereafter to 25.02.2019. On 25.02.2019, the DRT passed separate order not only in IA No.502/2017, but also in SA No.85/2010 under Section 17 of the SARFAESI Act.
The submission of the petitioner is that, the impugned order dated 25.02.2019 in SA No.85/2010 came to be passed without any hearing to the parties on the Securitization Application.
A perusal of the impugned order shows that the same does not even record that the counsels for the parties have been heard in the said Securitization Application (SA).
Counsel for the respondent fairly does not dispute the position that no specific hearing was held in respect of the Securitization Application.
In these circumstances, since the impugned order appears have been passed in breach of the Principles of Natural Justice, we set aside the order dated 25.02.2019 passed in SA No.85/2010 and remand the case back to the Debt Recovery Tribunal for passing a fresh orders in the SA after hearing learned counsels.
We make it clear that we have not examined the order of the Tribunal on merits, and have not expressed any opinion on the merits of the submissions of the parties The parties shall appear before the Tribunal on 24.05.2019 when the arguments in the said securitization application shall proceed. The parties shall neither seek, nor any adjournment shall be granted to the parties.
Another grievance raised by the petitioner is that the Tribunal does not put the parties and their counsels to notice, on a regular basis, about the date on which reserved orders are proposed to be pronounced. Mr.Bhandari has placed on record the print outs taken from the website of the DRT in relation to the present case. He submits that the impugned order came to be passed on 25.02.2019 itself, even though the proceedings in the securitization application had been adjourned to 08.03.2019. In this regard, he has also drawn the attention of the Court to the proceedings dated 07.03.2019 before the Recovery Officer II, DRT-I, Delhi in RC No.125/2010.
We leave it open to the petitioner to raise these issues before the learned DRAT under Section 17-A of the Recovery of Debts Due to Banks & Financial Institutions Act, 1993. We hope that the DRAT shall address the said grievance, not only of the petitioner but also of other parties and counsels appearing before the DRT."
Thereafter, the applicant moved the present application under Section 17-A in which one of the reliefs sought was for ordering an enquiry by the Registrar of this Tribunal under the supervision of the Chairperson to find out as to how the date of hearing before the DRT fixed for 08.03.2019 came to be changed to 25.02.2019 when the S.A. of the applicant came to be dismissed without affording any hearing to the parties. Besides this direction the applicant has also sought some other general directions relating to the functioning of the DRT-I in particular pursuant to the liberty given to the applicant by the Hon'ble High court, but for the time being I am confining myself to the grievance raised that the hearing in his S.A. came to be preponed from 08.03.2019 to 25.02. 2019 without any notice to the security applicant and an order adverse to the security applicant came to be passed.
Since the applicant had impleaded the Registrar of DRT-I as the sole respondent in this petition and a reading of the petition showed that the applicant was conveying that it was the Registrar of DRT, being the custodian of the judicial records, responsible for the change in date of hearing from 08.03.2019 to 25.02.2019 which amounted to tampering of judicial record notice was directed to be given to the Registrar of DRT-1, Delhi vide my order dated 28.05.2019 requiring him to submit his comments/ response on o3.06.2019. During that period the duties of the Registrar were being performed by one Mr. S.K.Dubey, Asstt. Registrar since the post of regular Registrar was lying vacant. Accordingly Mr. S.K.Dubey in his capacity as Registrar-in-charge of DRT-I, submitted his report dated 31.05.2019 which is re-produced below:-
"To
The Ld. Registrar
Debts Recovery Appellate Tribunal, Delhi
Apartment No.318, 3rd Floor, Hotel Samrat,
New Delhi - 110 021.
Respected Madam,
Sub: Submission of Reply in Appeal No.254/2019 in respect of order dated 15.05.2019 of DRT-I, Delhi in SA No.85/2010
Ref: Order dated 28.05.2019 of the Hon'ble DRAT, Delhi
Apropos notice received in Appeal No.254/2019 dated 29.05.2019, with unconditional apology, it is humbly submitted that the lapses pointed out has happened due to heavy workload pressure and acute shortage of staff. In fact, earlier also, various incidences of different dates was shown on the internet have come to notice and thereafter matter was taken up with NIC, who accepted their fault, had changed the staff deployed for the purpose of uploading of data on behalf of DRT's. Recently, their representatives were called and the matter was again reported. We are also enclosing herewith a couple of orders available for reference. We may point out here that the online data feeding is a pilot project in its nascent stage and no technically trained staff or with working knowledge of the same is available at either of the DRTs at Delhi. In the absence of leas line, connectivity problems also used to plague the uploading process quite often. An example of the glitches faced, is that recently on 28.05.2019, 85% of the data fed by all the DRTs at Delhi got obliterated of its own during the uploading process and the exercise had to be carried out again.
On 15.02.20219, 118 matters were listed before the Hon'ble Presiding Officer in the cause list, besides numerous cases on the list before the Registrar. Due to paucity of time, to fix next date of hearing in all the cases, due to the Presiding Officer being on leave on that day, the listing date was wrongly put on the internet as on 08.032019 instead of 25.02.2019, the correct date as per office records fixed for final orders in SA No.85/2010. This was merely a typographical mistake, which is common under pressure of heavy workload. Even in the petition in hand, the petitioner, on Page No.7, Para No.13, Line No.11, mentioned the date 20.08.2016 instead of 20.08.2018.
Only one regular steno was available with this Tribunal and we are forced to fall on make-shift arrangements. For this reason itself, a number of reserved final orders remain pending for dictation for long periods; consequently dates are to be repeatedly given in all such cases reserved for orders.
Kindly appreciate that since January 2018 to till date, this Tribunal has disposed of 2778 matters including IAs/RAs/Appeals/Execution Petitions/MAs besides the regular OAs/SAs. In fact, when the DRT was shifted to its new premises, DRT-I had 1050 OAs and 603 SAs under progress, which has since risen around to 4092 OAs and 839 SAs. The storage facility being limited, it is a herculean task to keep tracks of stacked up every files, which more often than not cause delay in disposal of cases.
We once again express our regrets for the mistake which was crept in and inconvenience caused thereby. As per direction of Hon'ble DRAT, Delhi, the comments on the subject matter are sent herein for kind perusal.
In view of the stated reasons, it is humbly requested that the comments/letter kindly be placed before Hon'ble Chairperson, DRAT, Delhi for kind perusal and consideration."(highlighting is by me)
On 10.06.2019 the following proceedings were recorded by me:-
"Present: Mr. Sanjeev Bhandari, counsel for the applicant
Today, during the course of hearing, necessity was felt to peruse the cause lists of 15.2.2019, 25.2.2019 and 8.3.2019 maintained by the DRT as also the Court Master's diary relating to these three dates. Counsel for the appellant submits that even in the records maintained by the Court Master date fixed in the case on 15.2.2019 was 8.3.2019, as was informed by him, and not 25.2.2019 on which date the S.A. came to be finally disposed of along with some review application in S.A. No.85/2010. Let these records be transmitted to this Tribunal along with a report/comments of the Presiding Officer of DRT-I, Delhi before whom the response of the Registrar of DRT shall be placed as also the response thereto filed by the applicant herein, copy whereof shall also be sent to the DRT along with copy of today's proceedings so that the learned Presiding Officer gets apprised of the connection with the present proceedings which are going on before this Tribunal.
Re-notify on 24.06.2019."
The response dated 21.06.2019 of the then learned Presiding Officer(who has since demitted office on completion of her tenure) is as under:-
"To
The Registrar DRAT
New Delhi.
Subject :- Submission of report in Misc. Application No.254/2019 (in arising out of SA No.85/2010-DRT-I, Delhi)
Madam,
Kindly refer to order dated 10.06.2019 passed by the Hon'ble DRAT, Delhi in the abovementioned subject. Factually, as per practice the job of preparing the cause list and maintaining the Court Register/ Diary is being maintained by the Court Master exclusively. On perusal of the record of daily cause list, the overwriting came to the notice in the instant case as well inadvertent entry of 08.03.2019 in court register has been seriously taken by the undersigned and accordingly the Registrar In-charge and the concerned staff has been cautioned to ensure that such things should not be repeated in future.
In this regard it is further humbly submitted to your kind notice that the undersigned was on leave due to suffering of swine flu on 15.02.2019 and the regular stenographer deputed with the court was also on leave on that day hence, some other staff was deputed in the court. Accordingly, as per order sheet, the matter was posted for orders on 25.02.2019.
I sincerely ensure your lordship that the error in the DRT website and overwriting in the cause list would not be repeated in future.
The inconvenience caused in this regard highly regretted. This report may please be placed before the Hon'ble DRAT for kind perusal and information."
I had also summoned the file of S.A.No. 85/2010 also. Perusal of that file showed that prior to 15/02/2019 the case was being listed for orders on one review application and final hearing in the main S.A. had not taken place. On 15.02.2019 the learned Presiding Officer was on leave and so Shri S.K.Dubey, Asstt. Registrar acting as Registrar in charge fixed the next date of 25.02.2019 for the same purpose for which the case was fixed on 15.02.029 i.e. for orders on the miscellaneous application. On 25.02.2019 the learned Presiding Officer not only disposed of the miscellaneous application fixed for orders but also the main S.A. itself. As noticed already the Hon'ble High Court had set aside the order dated 25.02.2019 accepting the grievance of the writ petitioner that the S.A. had been disposed of without hearing the parties and which grievance was supported on behalf of the bank also by its counsel.
The High Court had noted the grievance of the writ petitioner that in fact the case was never fixed for 25.02.2019 but was actually fixed for 08.03.2019. However, the High Court left that aspect of the matter to be examined by the Chairperson of DRAT in exercise of the power of superintendence conferred upon him under Section 17-A of the RDDBFI Act. Accordingly the present application under Section 17-A came to be filed.
The submission of Mr. Sanjiv Bhandari, learned counsel for the petitioner was that it is a matter of common knowledge in legal circles that whenever any court case is listed for pronouncement of orders advocates normally are not present at the time fixed for pronouncement but they make enquiries from the court maser later on as to whether the order was pronounced on the date fixed or some other date had been fixed for pronouncement. In the present case, submitted counsel, the dated fixed for pronouncement of one miscellaneous order was 15.02.2019 and in the cause list maintained by the court maser the next date shown was 08/03/2019 as also in the other computer generated printouts obtained from the website of the DRT-I. This fact is confirmed from the cause list of 15.02.2019 also which the court master was directed to produce and which he produced also.
During the pendency of the present proceedings Mr. Sanjiv Bhandari on 02.12.2019 placed on record fresh copies of the computerised print outs obtained from the web site of DRT-I which did not have the date of 25.02.2019 when the S.A. No. 85/2010 was dismissed. On 02.12.2019 the following proceedings came to be recorded by me:-
"Present : Mr. Sanjeev Bhandari, counsel for applicant
Today, Mr. Bhandari has produced two print-outs in respect of S.A. No.85/2010 on the board of the DRT-I, Delhi out of which the present 17-A proceedings have arisen. The print-outs are of different dates when the aforesaid S.A. was listed before the DRT, which, however, Mr. Bhandari points out, does not include the crucial date of 25.2.2019 when S.A. originally came to be disposed of. The grievance of the petitioner has been that the case was never listed for 25.2.2019 and it was listed for 8.3.2019 and subsequently there have been some interpolations in the records, which matter is being looked into by this Tribunal. The reports of the Presiding Officer and that of the Registrar have already been called. The date of 8.3.2019 is also missing in the print-outs produced today, which date existed in the earlier print-outs produced (at page 93 of this petition). This aspect will require examination in detail. Therefore, Mr. S.K. Dubey who was earlier functioning as Registrar I/C, which, according to Mr. Bhandari, he could not have described himself without proper authorisation and who has been earlier appearing should be called to appear and explain the things. He will appear on 4.12.2019 at 4 p.m. Now that there is a regular Registrar also in place, he will also come. This order be communicated to them telephonically also.
In the meanwhile, the learned Presiding Officer will also look into the aforesaid print-outs of dates of hearing in S.A. No.85/2010 and submit her comments also."
On 04.12.2019 the following order was passed by me:-
"Present: Mr. Sanjeev Bhandari, counsel for the applicant
Mr. Amit Dar, Registrar and Mr. S.K. Dubey, Assistant Registrar of DRT-I, Delhi
The Registrar, Mr. Amit Dar, and the Assistant Registrar, Mr. S.K. Dubey, are both present in compliance of the direction given to them.
The matters highlighted by Mr. Bhandari on 2.12.2019 and also in respect of earlier highlighted aspect pertaining to the entries of dates15.2.2019, 25.2.2019 and 8.3.2019 in the proceedings of S.A. No.85/2010 have been discussed at great length today. As far as the earlier documents are concerned, Mr. Dubey had already submitted his response, which was forwarded by the learned Presiding Officer.
The two print-outs now placed on record by Mr. Bhandari on 2.12.2019 show that the two dates which found mention in the earlier records submitted by Mr. Bhandari are missing.
Mr. Bhandari today points out that the entries in respect of S.A. 209/2017 in respect of two dateswhich were uploaded on the website of DRT-I, Delhi, i.e. 27.2.2019 and 28.2.2019, one of them has also gone missing from the website and that date is 27.2.2019. It is being urged by Mr. Bhandari, while highlighting the functioning of the DRT-I, Delhi, in one matter how could there be two order- sheets, one showing the next date as 27.2.2019 and the other one showing the next date as 28.2.2019. He has submitted today that deletion of one date, i.e. 27.2.2019 also substantiates his allegations of improper functioning of the DRT-I, Delhi Though Mr. Dubey has brought with him one official of NIC who looks after the work of uploading of proceedings of DRT-I and he wanted to offer some explanation through that official, this Tribunal feels that Mr.Dubey should give his explanation in writing.
The learned Presiding Officer was also asked to give her comments as far as the print-outs placed by Mr. Bhandari on record on 2.12.2019 are concerned. Her response is as under:-
"This is in reference to the order dated 02.12.2019 of Hon'ble DRAT Delhi. It is submitted that the concerned Technical Associate of the NIC was consulted in respect of SA No.85/2010 for the non- availability of dated 08.03.2019. however, he was unable to explain the same in absence of the relevant record; therefore, he has also been directed by the undersigned to be present before the Hon'ble DRAT, Delhi on 04.12.2019 at 4:00 pm for the explanation.
In view of the above, further time may be allowed for submitting the comments on the issue.
It is requested that this letter may kindly be placed before the Hon'ble DRAT, Delhi for information and necessary directions."
In my view, this is not the correct way of dealing with the matter. The Presiding Officer should have herself looked into the matter and give her comments. She is accordingly once again asked to give her own report considering the serious nature of the allegations being raised in the present proceedings which, Mr. Bhandari says, have been initiated pursuant to the liberty granted and the directions given by the Hon'ble High Court vide its order dated 15.5.2019 in WP(C) No.5261/2019. The Registrar Mr. Dar present says that he will communicate this direction passed today itself to the learned Presiding Officer for compliance.
Re-notify on 6.12.2019 at 4 p.m. Mr. Dar and Mr. Dubey will appear on that datealso."
On 06.12.2019 the following proceedings were recorded in the present matter:-
"Present: Mr. SanjeevBhandari, counsel for the appellant.
Mr.Amit Dar, Registrar and Mr. S.K Dubey, Asst. Registrar DRT- I, Delhi.
The Registrar Mr. AmitDar and Assistant Registrar Mr. S.K Dubey are both present.
Mr. S.K Dubey was directed to submit his own explanation to the irregularity which are being continued to be highlighted by the petitioner but he has not submitted his explanation.
The learned Presiding Officer was also asked to personally look into the matter and to submit her comments vide order dated 05.12.2019. Instead she has produced some correspondence between her and the NIC. The same is taken on record.She has sought some more time to give, 'final report'. The letter of the learned Presiding Officer addressed to the Registrar of this Tribunal is reproduced below:-
"In compliance of order dated 04.12.2019 of Hon'ble DRAT, Delhi, it is submitted that in view of the seriousness of the matter, the undersigned is looking into the matter and certain information is sought from the NIC, therefore the undersigned seeks further time to give final report. Some reports have already been obtained, which are enclosed herewith.
In view of the above, further time may be allowed for submitting the comments on the issue.
It is requested that this interim report may kindly be placed before the Hon'ble DRAT, Delhi for information and necessary directions.
From the aforesaid letter of the learned Presiding Officer as well as correspondence between Assistant Registrar and NIC clearly show that everyone realises that this matter being looked into by this Tribunal is quite serious. However, despite that no seriousness appears to have been shown by anyone to bring to the notice of this Tribunal the true state of affairs even though these proceedings are going from 28.05.2019 onwards.
Though, there is no justification for keeping this matter pending any further and deserves to be closed for pronouncement for appropriate order, considering the anxiety of the learned Presiding Officer about the seriousness of the matter, she is being given a last chance to submit her detailed comments/report.
Considering 'seriousness of the matter', and particularly the submissions being made by the Mr. SanjeevBhandari, Advocate that this is a case of tampering of officials records,this matter will now be taken up again on 09.12.2019.
The Registrar, Mr. Amit Dar, will communicate this direction also to the learned Presiding Officer today itself."
The question thus arises as to how the S.A. came to be listed for pronouncement of order of 25.02.2019 before the learned Presiding Officer on which date orders on the miscellaneous application as well as in the main S.A. itself came to pronounced. How and from where the court master had noted down the date of 8th March, 2019 in his cause list which came to be noted by the counsel for the security applicant as well as the counsel for the bank.
To have some answer to the said question notice was given to the acting registrar of the DRT-I Shri S.K.Dubey to respond being the custodian of judicial files of the DRT and towards whom finger of suspicion was sought to be raised during the course oral hearing in the matter on behalf of the applicant by his counsel. Mr. Dubey, submitted his response which I have already re-produced. By that time Mr. Dubey must have been fully aware as to what was happening in this matter and what allegations had been made by the security applicant through the present applicant Rajnish Wadhera firstly before the Hon'ble High Court and then before me in the present proceedings initiated pursuant to the liberty granted by the Hon'ble High Court for invoking Section 17-A. The applicant had categorically claimed that his S.A. was never fixed for pronouncement of orders on 25.02.2019 and in fact the same was fixed for 08.03.2019 and there was something fishy in the judicial file of the case showing the date of 25.02.2019 for orders which date was shown in the file to have been fixed by Mr. S.K.Dubey on 15.02.2019 when the learned Presiding Officer was on leave. Thus, the grievance of the applicant has been that there has been tampering of judicial record and which allegation was being sought to be substantiated from the computerised entries in respect of the case proceedings reflected in the web site of DRT-I, Delhi. Mr. Sanjiv Bhandari, advocate had also submitted that the entire functioning of DRT-I Delhi was dubious and which fact even the Hon'ble Delhi High Court had also found while hearing one writ petition no.12980/2018 during the hearing of which writ petition the Division Bench had taken a very serious view regarding the functioning of DRT-I and the seriousness was to such an extent that the Division Bench had even decided to refer the matter to CBI and accordingly notice had been given to CBI vide order dated 21.12.2018. All these facts had been pleaded in the present petition seeking an enquiry into the allegations of tampering of judicial record of S.A. No. 85/2010. Mr. Bhandari had submitted that when the Hon'ble High Court had set aside the order dated 25.02.2019 passed by the DRT it had been noticed in the order passed by the High Court that the writ petitioner had claimed that the date of 25.02.2019 was never fixed actually it was 08.03.2019. Mr. Bhandari submitted that the learned Presiding Officer also on her own ought to have looked into the matter and to have fixed the responsibility of some of her staff member(s) in case it was found that there was tampering either in the judicial file or in the computerised records of the S.A.No. 85/2010. Unfortunately, submitted learned counsel, the learned Presiding Officer also did not consider it necessary at all to enquire into serious allegations of tampering of judicial record of a case on her board even though it was a fit case for conducting an enquiry as contemplated under Section 340 of the Code of Criminal Procedure(Cr.P.C.) and the guilty should have been brought to book. Such like matters cannot be left without an enquiry. Mr. Bhandari submitted that when the Presiding Officer failed in her duty in not ordering any enquiry this Tribunal which not only is the appellate authority of DRT but its Chairperson is also vested with the power of superintendence over the functioning of DRTs and their Presiding Officers should now order an enquiry by the Registrar of this Tribunal under the supervision of the Chairperson.
Before proceeding further I would like to refer to one judgment dated 18 July, 2006 of the Allahabad High Court in "Dinesh Kumar vs Asstt. Director Of Consolidation", reported in 2007 (1) AWC 277. In that judgment the High Court had held that even the cause list of a court is a part of judicial record and tampering with the cause list amounts to tampering with judicial record. I am referring to this judgment because in the cause list of the court master of the DRT for 15.02.2019 produced by the court master of DRT-I there was an entry showing the next date fixed as '08/3' in hand but then that date was struck off and the date of '25/2' was hand written.
In the facts and circumstances of the case the least one could expect from Mr. S.K.Dubey, acting as Registrar of the DRT was to find out before appearing before this tribunal as to how could his DRT's reader note the date of hearing as 08.03.2019 in his cause list of 15.02.2019 when he(Mr. Dubey) had himself fixed the next date as 25.02.2019 on 15.02.2019 and further as to how the date of 08.03.2019 came to be scored off by the court master and changed to 25.02.2019 in the cause list. Mr. Dubey ought to have also tried to find out as to how in the web site records of DRT the date of 08.03.2019 came to be fed and who could do that and on the basis of which record. Mr. Dubey however did nothing of the sort before submitting his report before me in the present proceedings. As noticed already Mr. Dubey in fact accepted that there was something wrong somewhere for which he took upon himself the blame and tendered apology. That conduct of Mr. Dubey, according to the submission of the counsel for the applicant, prima facie, substantiates the suspicion raised by the applicant that the tampering of judicial record was there and that could be done either by Mr. Dubey himself or at least some other staff member on his command. Counsel submitted that unfortunately Mr. Dubey did not bother to unearth this mystery of change of dates even when his P residing Officer also gave him a show cause notice, as was noticed in the proceedings of 12.09.2019, in response to which also he simply tendered his apology and by giving reports before this Tribunal he has tried to put the blame of the officials of National Informatics Centre(NIC) to hide his own misdeeds of tampering the judicial record by changing the date of 08.03.2019 in the file of S.A.No. 85/2010 to 25.02.2019 and placing the file before the Presiding Officer on 25.02.2019 for pronouncement of order.
In the facts and circumstances of the case I am of the considered view that this was a fit case where a threadbare enquiry should have been conducted either by the Registrar of the DRT or the Presiding Officer. However, both of them failed in their duty by not resolving the controversy as to how the date of 08.03.2019 came to be changed to 25.02.2019 and at whose instance. Here I may make a useful reference to one judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Radhey Shyam Garg vs. Naresh Kumar Gupta" reported as 2009 (13) SCC 201. In that case the Hon'ble Supreme Court had after noticing some dissimilarity in the two signatures of the deponent of an affidavit filed before the Supreme Court had directed that an enquiry be conducted in terms of Section of 340 Cr.P.C. Facts in the present case noticed above thus also justify initiation of a preliminary enquiry as contemplated under Section 340 Cr.P.C. which ought to have been done by the learned presiding Officer of the Tribunal below. The Presiding Officer having failed in her duty this Tribunal as an appellate forum to which appeals lie against the orders of the DRT can now do that as also in exercise of supervisory jurisdiction which this Tribunal exercises over the DRTs.
The Registrar of this Tribunal who is regular Registrar of one of the DRTs in Delhi is presently performing duties as Registrar in charge of DRAT since the post of regular Registrar is lying vacant. I, therefore, entrust the preliminary enquiry in terms of Section 340 Cr.P.C. to the learned Presiding Officer of DRT-III, Delhi who is looking after the work of DRT-I also as its Presiding Officer has already demitted office. While conducting the enquiry the learned Presiding Officer of DRT-III shall keep in mind the two decisions of the Honb'le Supreme Court which laid down the scope of preliminary enquiry under Section 340 Cr.P.C. Those judgments are reported as Pritish v. State of Maharashtra, (2002) 1 SCC 253 and AIR 1978 SC 290.
The preliminary enquiry should be completed uninfluenced by anything observed in this order, within fortyfive days and report submitted to this Tribunal for further appropriate directions. To enable the learned Presiding Officer to conduct the enquiry the records of S.A.No. 85/20170 as also copies of all the orders passed in the present proceedings shall be made available by the Registry of DRAT and the same shall be returned to this Tribunal alongwith the enquiry report.
The present matter shall now be taken up for further proceedings and consideration of other general grievances raised by Mr. Sanjiv Bhandari regarding the functioning of DRTs in general under the jurisdiction Delhi DRAT. Renotify on 15.09.2020.