Important point
Service Rules, neither expressly nor by implication have taken away the jurisdiction of the Civil Courts to deal with service matters.

Judgment

Leave granted.

2. The appellant was proceeded against Departmentally when the Inquiry Officer found him guilty of the charges framed against him and submit­ted his report dated 17th November, 1992 to the Disciplinary Authori­ty. After issuance of show cause notice to the appellant seeking his reply, the Disciplinary Authority agreed with the Inquiry Officer and dismissed the appellant from service vide Memo dated 12th February, 1993. The order of dismissal was put in issue by the appellant by instituting a civil suit for declaration that the order of dismissal from service was void and illegal and that the appellant was entitled to be reinstated. On 21st August, 1995, the suit was dismissed. The appeal filed by the appellant before the learned District Judge, however, succeeding and on 30th July, 1996, the learned District Judge allowing the appeal declared that since proper procedure had not been followed and the appellant had been denied the facility of a Defence Assistant after his earlier Defence Assistant had ceased to act for him, the order of dismissal was illegal. The appellant Court, however, granted liberty to the respondent to continue with the Departmental Inquiry after providing the appellant a Defence Assistant of his choice from the stage at which his earlier Defence Assistant had ceased to act as Defence Assistant and to proceed therefrom. The respondent filed an appeal against the judgment and decree of the learned District Judge, while the appellant filed cross-objections. On 21st March, 1997, the second appeal, filed by the res­pondent, was allowed. The learned Single Judge of the High Court referred to Rule 24 of the C.C.S.(C.C. & A.) Rules, 1965 and opined that in view of those provisions, the jurisdiction of the civil court had been taken away. The learned Single Judge went on to hold that where recourse is had to Departmental proceedings, the order of the appellant authority, against an adverse order of the Disciplinary Authority, could only be subject matter of challenge in a writ petition and that the jurisdic­tion of the civil court to deal with the matter of this type through a civil suit stood ousted.

3. It is against the above judgment and order of the learned single Judge of the High Court that the present appeal has been filed by special leave.

4. We have heard Mr. P.K. Goswami, learned Senior counsel on behalf of the appellant and Ms. Sumeet Kaur, learned counsel on behalf of the respondents.

5. The opinion expressed by the learned single Judge to the effect that in view of C.C.A. Rules, the jurisdiction of the civil court is ousted from dealing with an order passed by the disciplinary authority which can be questioned under the service rules and that even after recourse is had to the Departmental proceedings recourse can only be to file a writ petition is palpably erroneous. The learned single Judge readily accepted the ouster of jurisdiction of civil courts to deal with service matters without proper consideration of the matter. Indeed, it is appropriate to relegate a person to exhaust Departmental remedies when he approaches the Court without exhausting Departmental reme­dies under the service rules but to hold that the civil court had no jurisdiction while hearing a second appeal, after the matter has been litigated in civil courts for more than five years was, to say the least, not proper. The learned single Judge ought to have decided the case on its own merits and not made a short cut of it. The appel­lant could not have been non-suited on the ground that he had failed to take recourse to proceedings under the C.C.S. (C.C. & A.) Rules, 1965 against the order of dismissal.

6. Again the opinion expressed by the learned single Judge to the effect,

“It is my firm conviction that in the present case the Civil Court cannot make a declaration under Section 34 of the Specific Relief Act as its jurisdiction has been taken away by the special rules i.e. CCS (CCA) Rules, 1965. Under the circums