Judgment

AYYANGAR, J. -  The appellants, R. P. Kapur, was appointed to the Indian Civil Service in or about 1938. He continued in the service after independence and has since 1948, been in the service of the Government of the Punjab. While so, on May 26, 1961 an order was made in the name of the Governor Punjab directing an inquiry against the appellants under the Public Servants (Inquiries) Act, 1850. The appellants challenged the validity of this order in a petition that he filed to the High Court of Punjab under Art. 226 of the Constitution and when that was dismissed he has preferred this appeal with the special leave of this Court. This appeal was heard by us in the second week of February, 1963 and judgment was reserved on the 13th of that month. Several points of law and fact were canvassed in the appeal and those will be dealt with in the judgment to be pronounced.

2. There was one point, however, which did arise on the case but was not fully argued and that related to the proper construction and legal effect of S. 2 of the Public Servants (Inquiries) Act, 1850 which, as it now stands, reads :

"Whenever the Government shall be of opinion that there are good grounds for making a formal and public inquiry into the truth of any imputation of misbehaviour by any person in the service of the Government not removable from his appointment without the sanction of the Government, it may cause the substance of the imputations to be drawn into distinct articles of charge, and may order a formal and public inquiry to be made into the truth thereof."

The question we are referring to is whether the Government of the State of the Punjab was competent to make the impugned order against the appellants under this provision on its terms. That question might be formulated in these terms : under S. 2 there are three conditions which have to be satisfied before a formal and public inquiry might be directed to be made into the truth of the imputations of misbehaviour. They are: (1) The Government should be of opinion that there are good grounds for making such a formal and public inquiry. We have heard full arguments on the question as to whether this condition has or has not been satisfied and it is not necessary to say anything more about it now. (2) The inquiry can be directed under S. 2 by the Government only against a person in the service of that Government. It is obvious that this condition is satisfied and there was no argument raised inregard to it and the decision of this Court in Sarad Kapur Singh v. Union of India, 1960-2 S C R 569 furnishes a complete answer to any contention that this condition is not satisfied in the present case. (3) The third and the last condition is that the person is "removable from his appointment by or with the sanction of that Government". We are stating here in positive terms what occurs in the section in negative terms. One possible construction of this provision would be that the officer against whom the inquiry is being directed should be capable of being dismissed or removed from service by that Government which is authorised to direct the inquiry. Another interpretation might be that the condition of "removability" only relates to removability from the office which the officer holds for the time being. We are not expressing any opinion as to which of these is the correct view that could be taken of this provision, but we are merely pointing out that the former is one possible construction. If that construction, however, be right it would be apparent that the appellant who could not be dismissed or removed from service except by the Government of India, would not fall within those words and consequently he would not be a public servant against whom the State Government of the Punjab could initiate these proceedings.

3. During the course of the arguments a query was raised as to whether the third condition we have mentioned earlier was satisfied or not but it was assumed that this point had been consid