Rule of punctuation when a principal sentence is followed by two or more subordinate sentences

I put below a text I found in a written reply I came across:

"...in the Audit Report, it is stated that we did not rebut the Draft Audit Report (DAR). The actual fact is otherwise: we had prepared a written submission against the DAR; when we went to submit the same to Sales Tax Office, the Receiving Clerk, before receiving the written representation, asked us to get an initial of Mr. Dharmendra Verma on the written representation in compliance with the practice prevalent in that office; when we requested Mr. Verma to put the initial, he kept the written representation with himself and asked us to visit him on a later date; we paid several visits to him on the later dates as, each time we visited him on a later date, he asked us to visit him on a still later date; he has not yet put the initial and the written representation is still laying with him. So, it is not true that we did not rebut the DAR."

In the text quoted above, the writer, in order to introduce a story, first puts an introductory sentence as follows:

"The actual fact is otherwise:"

and then unfolds the story in five sentences that follow the introductory sentence. After the introductory sentence is written, the story that the writer seeks to introduce gets initiated, but remains incomplete until all the five following sentences that unfold the story are written. It is perhaps for this reason that the writer first punctuates the introductory sentence with a colon (:) and then punctuates all intermediate sentences with a semicolon (;) before he punctuates the final sentence closing the story with a full stop (.).

I do not know if this rule of punctuation is okay. Can anybody shed some light?

In the instant text, the story consisted of just five sentences, so the punctuation pattern (first a colon, then one or more semicolons and, finally, a full stop) was workable. In case a story is lengthier, say consisting of twenty sentences or thirty, the reader, by the time he finishes the story, would forget the context that he was in when he started reading the story. Cannot in that case the writer resort to put the entire story in a separate paragraph with usual punctuation and no need to punctuate as aforesaid?

Solution 1:

I certainly wouldn't ever punctuate in that way nor, I should hope would I ever write in such a tortuous manner.

It either needs to be bullet-pointed, or else written as a piece of prose, with separate sentences for each item. And, as prose, it requires linking syntax.

My suggestion would be something like the following. I have also eliminated the excessive verbosity. The end result I would suggest is far simpler and more easily read.

The facts are otherwise. To begin with we prepared a written submission against the DAR, but when we went to submit it to the Sales Tax Office, the Receiving Clerk, asked us to get it initialled by Mr. Dharmendra Verma, in compliance with the usual practice.

However, when we asked Mr. Verma for his initials, he kept the written representation and asked us to visit him at a later date. We have made several visits but each time he has asked us to come on a still later date.

He has never initialled the document, and it is still in his possession.

Hence it is not true that we failed to rebut the DAR.

Solution 2:

The simple answer is: punctuation is a style issue not a grammar issue. Typesetting is a specialty form of editing to improve readers' comprehension. Your passage is awful; it is an affront to my eyes. My brain fuzzed it out before I finished reading it, twice.

Style guides differ, but here's what The Chicago Manual of Style has to say about colon punctuation:

6.59 The colon should generally convey the sense of "as follows."

6.61 When The colon is used within a sentence ... the first word following the colon is lowercase unless it is a proper noun. When a colon introduces two or more sentences ... when it introduces a speech in dialogue or as an extract ... or when it introduces a direct question, the first word following it is capitalized.

Using semicolons in your passage seems almost specifically designed to maintain lowercase; although, I cannot think of a sane reason why this would be a priority.

The punctuation is correct, just ridiculous in a technical setting.