JUDGMENT
Rekha Sharma, J.
1. The petitioner – Shri Surinder Kumar Sharma is presently working as Assistant Accounts Officer with the Municipal Corporation of Delhi. In the year 1982, he was a Lower Division Clerk and in his such capacity, he made a note in a file concerning one Smt. Prem Kumari who was in occupation of Shed No. 27 in Madanpur Khadar, Delhi, little knowing that many years after the said note would become his nemesis. The note in question was to the following effect:
Smt. Prem Kumari, submitted an affidavit as a successor of late Shri Godarmal, the allottee of 20 rings in Shed No. 27, Madanpur Khadar. Her husband is working out of India as per affidavit. If agree, demand notice for license fee in the name of Smt. Prem Kumar the daughter-in-law of late Sh. Godarmal the allottee of 20 rings in Shed No. 27, Madanpur Khadar may kindly be issued.
2. After a decade and five years, to be precise, on 26th February, 1997, the aforesaid note came to haunt the petitioner. The Municipal Corporation of Delhi decided to hold an inquiry against him, on the allegation, that he deliberately and with mala fide intention committed an act of omission by issuing a demand notice in the name of Smt. Prem Kumari, daughter-in-law of the original allottee without getting mutation approved from the competent authority in favor of Smt. Prem Kumari as required under the procedure prescribed for such jobs. Needless to say, the petitioner denied the allegation. In view of his denial, inquiry was conducted against him which culminated in the imposition of penalty of ‘reduction in time scale of pay by two stages for a period of three years with cumulative effect’. He preferred an appeal against the penalty so imposed but with no success. It is the order imposing the penalty and the order rejecting his appeal against which he has preferred the present writ petition.
3. It is submitted by learned Counsel for the petitioner that his case is squarely covered by a judgment of this Court passed in the case of Shri Ramesh Singh v. MCD, Delhi and Ors. bearing Writ Petition (C) No. 64 of 1998 on May 6, 2004. The petitioner in the said case was one Shri Ramesh Singh. He was also a Lower Division Clerk in the same office, dealt with the same file of Smt. Prem Kumari and made the same noting as the present petitioner. He happened to deal with the file after the present petitioner had relinquished the charge. He too was served with a similar charge-sheet as the