IMPORTANT POINT
A wrong decision by the Govt. would not give a right to enforce the wrong order and claim parity or equality.

Headnote:SERVICE LAW - Respondent an Associate Professor in Metallurgical Engineering Department of appellant was selected for Quality Improvement Programme - He made an application to appellant for relieving him - It was alleged to have been denied illegally and arbitrarily - Writ to direct appellant to relieve him - Resisted on plea that permission was to be denied if staff strength in that department would go below 70% of the fixed capacity and if petitioner was to be relieved strength would be reduced to 61.9% of sanctioned strength - High Court found that though there was a norm yet there was no consistency in that regard and norms were not followed in several cases and writ petition was allowed - Division Bench confirmed the order - Appeal - Wrong order could not be the foundation for claiming equality for enforcement of same order - Merely because in some cases, norms may not have been followed that could not be a ground to hold that departure from norms should be continued - Impugned order could not be sustained.
       Held : In a converse case, in the first instance, one may be wrong but the wrong order cannot be the foundation for claiming equality for enforcement of the same order. As stated earlier, his right must be founded upon enforceable right to entitle him to the equality treatment for enforcement thereof. A wrong decision by the Government does not give a right to enforce the wrong order and claim parity or equality. Two wrongs can never make a right.(Para 10)
       Merely because in some cases the norms may not have been followed that cannot be a ground to hold that departure from norms should be continued. There are serious allegations about respondent having manipulated and fabricated documents to substantiate his stand. We need not go into these allegations. But as has been fairly accepted by the learned counsel for the respondent, there is no official communication from IIT Madras to support the respondents stand that he was asked by the authorities of the said institute not to attend the programme. There should have been some material to support the stand. Unfortunately, for the respondent there is none. On the other hand admittedly after April, 2005 the respondent had abandoned the programme. It is also on record that the appellant notwithstanding these facts had asked the respondent to report back to IIT, Madras to continue studies in terms of High Courts direction. But that does not seem to have been done by the respondent.(Para 11)
       The inevitable result is that the orders of the learned Single Judge and the Division Bench of the High Court cannot be maintained and are accordingly set aside.(Para 12)

JUDGMENT

Arijit Pasayat, J. - Leave granted.

2. Challenge in this appeal is to the judgment rendered by a Division Bench of the Jharkhand High Court dismissing the Letters Patent Appeal filed by the appellant against the judgment of the learned Single Judge in a writ petition. The respondent filed a writ petition for a direction to the appellant to relieve him so that he would be in a position to pursue his Ph.D course in Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (in short IIT).

3. The background facts in a nutshell are as follows:

The writ petitioner (respondent herein) is an Associate Professor in Metallurgical Engineering Department of the National Institute of Technology, Jamshedpur, the appellant herein. According to the writ petition, the writ petitioner submitted an application for admission in Quality Improvement Programme (QIP) sponsored by AICTE through Regional Institute of Technology, Jamshedpur. He was selected for admission in IIT, Madras and was asked to appear at that institution for completing pre-registration formalities. According to the writ petition, though he made an application to the appellant for relieving him to make the pre-registration visit, he had been illegally and arbitrarily denied the permission by the appellant. According to the writ petitioner, the action of the appellant was unreasonable and was also discriminatory. The appellant resisted the writ petition by pointing out that according to the norms, if on relieving a teacher to attend such a programme, the staff strength in that department would go below 70 percent of the fixed capacity, the permission was to be denied and if the writ petitioner was to be relieved as sought for by him, the strength in that department would be reduced to 6l.9% of the sanctioned strength and it was in that situation that he was not accorded permission to get himself registered for the course. It was also submitted that even originally, while forwarding his application, the writ petitioner had been informed that he would be able to pursue his course only if he could be relieved from the Institute and only if on his being relieved, the staff strength would not be reduced below 70%. The plea of discrimination was denied and it was submitted that the writ petitioner was deliberately attempting to malign the department by raising the bogey of his being a member of a Scheduled Caste and was trying even to blackmail the authorities by threatening that he would commit suicide if he was not relieved. The writ petition deserves to be dismissed.

4. Though the learned Single Judge found that there was a norm providing for refusal of permission to a teacher to go in for such a course if the staff strength would be reduced below 70% yet it was observed that there was no consistency in that regard and the norms were not followed in several cases. Therefore, it would not be fair to deny such an opportunity. The appellant preferred Letters Patent Appeal before the High Court.

5. It was pointed out that pursuant to an administrative decision dated 9.11.2003 by the Ministry of Human Resources Development (in short the HRD) the Board of Governors had adopted the Leave Rules and Conduct Rules of the National Institute of Technology for implementation in the institute. Such decision was taken on the day the matter was heard by a learned Single Judge and the orders were reserved. By the time the learned Single Judge pronounced its judgment IIT, Delhi Rules had already become operative and, therefore, no member of the teaching staff could be relieved for such a course, if the available strength of the staff gets reduced below 85%. To state differently, only quota of 15% could be permitted for such a course.

6. The Division Bench held that though on principles it would have agreed with the appellants stand that when the norms prescribed that the strength should not be reduced below 70% by relieving a teacher for a programme such a teacher should not be relieved, yet it was held because

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2006 Supreme(SC) 1114

IMPORTANT POINTA wrong decision by the Govt. would not give a right to enforce the wrong order and claim parity or equality.

Cases Referred (6)

IMPORTANT POINT
A wrong decision by the Govt. would not give a right to enforce the wrong order and claim parity or equality.