JUDGMENT
Kiran Anand Lall, J.
1. By this common judgment, we would be disposing of the above detailed nine Civil Writ Petitions, as same point is involved in all of these viz. as to whether it was legal for the competent authority to withdraw the names of petitioners from C-II list, due to infliction of major punishments, viz. forfeiture of service for specified periods and stoppage of increment (s), etc., on them.
2. For the sake of convenience, facts of Civil Writ Petition No. 857 of 2004 are being given here:
The petitioner joined service on 8.10.1990. It was in the year 1993 that his name was included for promotion to the post of Head Constable, in List C-II. Later on, the competent authority issued a show cause notice No. 328 dated 8.10.2003, Annexure P1, calling upon him to show cause as to why his name should not be withdrawn from the promotion list of C-II, on account of the major punishment awarded to him. He filed reply Annexure P2 thereto, wherein it was pleaded that since his one year service had already been forfeited, he may not be penalised further by removing his name from List C-II, for the same lapse. The reply did not find favour with the competent authority, which, therefore, passed the impugned order dated 4.11.2003 (Annexure P3), removing the name of the petitioner from the promotion list of C-II.
3. The stand of respondents is that the impugned action was taken as per Rule 13.8A of the Punjab Police Rules, 1934 (for short “the Rules”), as major punishment had been inflicted on the petitioner.
4. The matter, it may be stated, does not require any discussion, since the point under consideration has already been authoritatively settled by this Court in Civil Writ Petition No. 5505 of 2004 titled Kashmiri Lal v. State of Punjab and Ors., decided on 20.7.2006, wherein after referring to Rule 13.8A of the Rules, this Court had dismissed a similar petition, by observing as under:
A perusal of the aforesaid rule reveals, that infliction of a major punishment “shall be a bar… to retention in lists A, B or C…”. It is, therefore apparent, that the removal of a name from List C-II is consequential to the infliction of a major punishment. Since the major punishment inflicted on the petitioner, namely, forfeiture of his one year’s approved service, is not subject matter of challenge, the removal of the petitioner’s name from List-II, was clearly the natural effect of Rule 13.8A of the 1934 Rules.
In view of the above, we find no infirmity in the impugned order by which the name of the petitioner was removed from List C-II….
5. No judgment to the contrary was cited by the learned Counsel for the petitioners. Hence, placing reliance on the above referred to judgment of this Court, we uphold the validity of the orders impugned in all the petitions. Accordingly, all the nine petitions shall stand dismissed.