in fact, lead to frame charges against them, then, certainly, money, if it is a ill gotten money must be for the benefit of both the petitioner as well as the said Constable Sadashiv. Assuming that the said Sadashiv is an innocent and he had been with the possession of the money, only because it was given by the said Ramasamy ie., the petitioner herein and therefore, the said Sadashiv could be an innocent one, than the Sadashiv could not have been given a punishment, even a minimum punishment of stoppage of increment. I f the money was thrown only by the said Sadashiv, then, either the petitioner can have the joint responsibility with the said Sadashiv or the petitioner can claim innocence, as from whom no money was recovered or the petitioner had not thrown any money, at the time of surprise inspection, in that case, the petitioner should not have been inflicted with the maximum punishment of removal of service. Moreover, none of the eye witnesses, as has been claimed by the department, has deposed before the Enquiry Officer that they saw the incident of throwing the bundle of currency by the said Sadashiv. What they merely said is that at 13 hours when they were near to the blue gate, these team of officers came up for inspection and immediately, when the duty time was over, they left the spot or what had happened in the blue gate were not known to them. Moreover, there is no complaint from the container/lorry owners about the demand of any illegal gratification by the petitioner and other Constable, at any rate no such recovery of money has been made from the possession of the petitioner.
