Shamsher Chand vs H.P. Board of School Education Dharamshala and Another

Deepak Gupta, J.—This petition is directed against the show cause notice dated 6.3.2006 and the Office Order of same date, whereby the Petitioner has been directed to show cause, why action be not taken against him for filing false affidavit and vide Office Order he had been directed to vacate the official accommodation allotted to him within a week.

It is not disputed that the Petitioner is working as driver with the HP Board of School Education. As per the rules he was asked to file an affidavit, whether he has any personal accommodation within a radius of eight kilometers from his office. The Petitioner filed an affidavit duly attested by the Notary Public, Dharamshala in which he deposed as follows:

That I have constructed my own house in Dharamsala, Tika Chelian, Panchayat Sakoh which is situated 4 Kms away from the office of H.P. Board of School Education Dharamsala.

That the said house is still uncompleted and finishing work is being carried out at this time. That the said house is not fit for living of human at this time.

According to the Respondents, the Secretary of the Board asked four officials of the Board to visit the house of the Petitioner to verify, whether the house is complete or not. On 22.2.2006 four officials, i.e. S/Sh. Ashwani Gupta, Joint Secretary, Surinder Malhotra, OSD, R.P. Verma, Assistant Secretary and Karam Singh, Sr. Assistant of the Board visited the aforesaid house of Shamsher Chand, driver and as per their report seven students were residing in the house and they recorded the statements of the students in which they stated that they had been residing in the house of the Petitioner for about 5 months. The officials in their report have also reported that these students made a verbal statements that they are paying rent to the Petitioner which total amounts to Rs. 3800/-per month. However, as pointed out by Mr. Vikas Bhardwaj, learned Counsel for the Petitioner this fact is not mentioned in the written statement of the students duly recorded.

In reply to the show cause notice, the Petitioner sent a reply Annexure A-4 in which he has not denied that students were living in the house and has in fact stated as follows:

...The house is still incomplete, as submitted above, and the same is not worth living for a family, as such, the college students and a peon of the Board have been allowed to stay in the house on their request as they are not in a position to pay the rent and I allowed them to stay there so that any stranger may not cause any loss to the property on the spot and they may take care of the premises. As such, it is wholly baseless to term them as tenants as I do not receive any rent from them....

The denial of the Petitioner is only to the extent that he does not charge any rent from these students. He does not deny the fact that seven students and a peon are residing in the house. Therefore, his submission that the house is not fit for human habitation is prima facie false. Therefore, the Board was justified in asking the Petitioner to vacate the premises. As far as the question of income is concerned, the Petitioner has an opportunity to reply the show cause notice and prove that he was not charging any rent from the persons occupying the house.

In view of the above discussion, I find no merit in the petition which is rejected. The stay order is vacated. No costs.