IMPORTANT POINT
Where Out of list of 275 retrenched employees, only services of appellant were terminated, said retrenchment being discriminatory in nature and violative of right to equality was held liable to be quashed.

Judgment

Tarun Chatterjee, J. —

1. Leave granted.

2. This appeal is directed against the Judgment and Order dated 22nd of February, 2006 in LPA No. 366 of 2006 of the High Court of Delhi at New Delhi whereby the Division Bench of the High Court had affirmed the decision of the learned single judge dismissing the Writ Petition of the appellant whereby he sought to challenge the termination of his services from the Delhi State Mineral Development Corporation (in short, “The Corporation”) as illegal, unjust and arbitrary.

3. The brief facts leading to the filing of this appeal may be summarized as under:-

4. The appellant was appointed as a heavy vehicle driver by the Corporation on temporary basis on 3rd of November, 1987 in the pay scale of Rs.1400-2600/-. By an Order dated 23rd of January, 1989, the services of the appellant were regularized with effect from the date of his appointment. In 1992, the Corporation retrenched some of its employees on the ground of reduced activities of the Corporation. Accordingly, a Circular dated 27th of August, 1992 was issued to this effect along with a list of retrenched employees to be redeployed in Delhi Administration or any other undertakings/corporations under the control of Delhi Administration. In the said list, the name of the appellant appeared at serial No. 48. It was the case of the appellant that the Corporation, instead of redeploying the appellant as per the policy abovementioned, terminated his services by an Order dated 13th of July, 1993 under sub-rule (1) of Rule 5 of the Central Civil Services (Temporary Service) Rules, 1965 (in short “the CCS Rules”) read with Rule 7 (ii) of the Staff Service Rules of DSIDC, 1978.

5. Feeling aggrieved, the appellant approached the High Court of Delhi challenging the aforesaid Order of termination as illegal, unjust and arbitrary. By an Order dated 15th of December, 2005, the learned single judge, while holding that the termination of services of the appellant treating him as a temporary employee was not proper, dismissed the writ petition on the ground that on abolition of post, the appellant had no right to continue in service. Against this decision of the learned single judge of the High Court, the appellant filed a Letters Patent Appeal, which was, however, dismissed by the Judgment and Order dated 22nd of February, 2006. It is this decision of the High Court, which is impugned in this appeal on grant of leave.

6. We have heard the learned counsel for the parties and examined the impugned Judgment of the Division Bench of the High Court as well as of the learned Single Judge and the other materials on record including the re-deployment policy of the Corporation. Before we deal with the respective submissions of the learned counsel for the parties, we deem it expedient at this stage to reproduce the relevant provisions of the CCS Rules and the Staff Service Rules of DSIDC, which are required to be considered for a proper decision of this appeal.

7. As already noted, the Corporation had terminated the services of the appellant under sub-rule (1) of Rule 5 of the CCS Rules read with Rule 7(ii) of the Staff Service Rules of DSIDC, 1978, sub-rule (1) of Rule 5 of the CCS Rules, 1965 may be reproduced as under: -

“5. Termination of Temporary Service (i) (a) The services of a temporary Government servant who is not in quasi permanent service shall be liable to termination at any time by a notice in writing given either by the Government servant to the authority or by the appointing authority to the Government servant.

(b) The period of such notice shall be one month; provided that the services of any such Government servant may be terminated forthwith and on such termination the Government servant shall be entitled to claim a sum equivalent to the amount of pay plus allowance for the period of the notice at the same rates at which he was drawing then immediately before the termination of his services or, as the case may be terminated forthwith and on