Neutral Citation No. - 2025:AHC-LKO:41535-DB Court No. - 1 Case :- WRIT - A No. - 7697 of 2025 Petitioner :- Roop Singh Rawat Respondent :- State Of U.P. Thru. Prin. Secy. Home, Lko. And 4 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Ramesh Singh,Himanshu Deepak Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.,Shikhar Anand Hon'ble Attau Rahman Masoodi,J. Hon'ble Shree Prakash Singh,J. (1) Heard learned counsel for the petitioner and learned Additional Chief Standing Counsel for the State. (2) This writ petition is directed against the judgment/order passed by U.P. State Public Services Tribunal, Lucknow in Claim Petition No.1442 of 2021 on 21.01.2025 rejecting the claim petition arising out of an order of censure entry. (3) Briefly stated, the facts of the case are that on account of some misbehaviour with one of his colleagues on 03.09.2020, a preliminary inquiry was conducted against the petitioner. In preliminary inquiry, the allegation of being in a drunken state was not proved, however, misbehaviour and altercation with his counterpart led to issuance of a notice for disciplinary action on 21.11.2020 for minor penalty. The notice was duly served upon the petitioner, wherein he was required to submit his reply within a period of fifteen days, in the event of failure, the allegation would be presumed to be proved the notice clarified. (4) Admittedly, the petitioner failed to file any reply in response to the notice issued on 21.11.2020. The disciplinary authority, on the basis of presumption stipulation in the notice, proceeded to impose a punishment of censure upon him by order dated 28.12.2020. (5) The petitioner feeling aggrieved against the said punishment order passed by the disciplinary authority, filed an appeal before the appellate authority. (6) On a close reading of the contents of the appeal filed by the petitioner, it is sufficiently gathered that he had admitted of entering into an altercation with his counterpart on 03.09.2020 in connection with the cot but there is no explanation in the appeal to the effect that failure on his part to submit a reply in response to the notice was on account of his illness. The petitioner has repeatedly put forth an argument that since he was ill at the relevant point of time, he could not submit reply in response to the show cause notice. This argument on being verified from the contents of appeal filed by the petitioner does not find any support whatsoever. Even in the revision preferred before the revisional authority no such ground appears to have been urged by the petitioner. The petitioner in the claim petition filed before the Tribunal has again put forth no such explanation. The petitioner for the first time took a stand of his illness in paragraph 4.9 of the claim petition before the Tribunal which for ready reference is extracted below:- "That the petitioner received the copy of the show cause notice on 30.11.200, but due to suffering from kidney problem an he was continuously under treatment, therefore, due to ill health, he was not in a position to submit reply to the show cause notice and the opp party no.2 without waiting for the reply, passed the punishment order ex-parte against the petitioner." (7) This Court would gather that the petitioner had not substantiated such a ground on the basis of any medical evidence. Moreover, such a plea appears to have been taken for the first time before the Tribunal without any such mention being made in the appeal or revision filed by the petitioner before the departmental authority. Thus, the submission put forth by the petitioner is afterthought. The petitioner neither before the Tribunal nor before this Court has placed any substantive evidence on the basis of which it can be deciphered that he was suffering from any serious kidney ailment at the relevant point of time which prevented him from submitting a reply in response to the show cause notice. The decision taken by the departmental authority on the strength of presumption was open to be interfered with, provided there was some material put forth by the petitioner either along with appeal or before the Tribunal substantiating the plea of his ailment. On the contrary, it appears that the petitioner was taking some homeopathic medicine which by itself belies the stand taken by him. (8) For all these reasons, we do not find any scope to interfere with the order passed by the Tribunal. The view expressed by the Tribunal does not call for any interference in exercise of writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. (9)The writ petition being bereft of merit is hereby dismissed. . (Shree Prakash Singh, J.) (Attau Rahman Masoodi, J.) Order Date :- 21.7.2025 akhilesh/- Digitally signed by :- AKHILESHWAR KUMAR High Court of Judicature at Allahabad, Lucknow Bench Digitally signed by :- AKHILESHWAR KUMAR High Court of Judicature at Allahabad, Lucknow Bench