innocence. The right of the delinquent officer to crossexamine witnesses who give evidence against him is a valuable right and in order to effectively exercise this right, it is necessary that the examination-in-chief of the witnesses should be recorded in the presence of the party against whom the deposition is made. An enquiry wherein examination-inchief has been recorded in the absence of the person charged though he is allowed to cross-examine the witness, cannot be said to have been held in accordance with the rules of natural justice. This position is well settled by the judgments of the Supreme Court in Union of India v. T.R. Varma, AIR 1957 SC 882, Jagdish Prasad Saxana V. State of Madhya Bharat, AIR 1961 SC 1070, State of Madhya Pradesh V. Chintaman Sadasiva, AIR 1961 SC 1623 and a catena of other decisions to follow. The Calcutta High Court in Choudhury v. Union of India and others, 1957-I LLJ 494 (Cal.), where the concerned employee was confronted with the evidence of the witnesses examined behind his back and where some of such witnesses were not rendered for cross-examination held that the enquiry was vitiated by violation of principles of natural justice and the dismissal order based on such enquiry must be held to be invalid.”
