Ravi S.Dhavan, J.

1. This Letters Patent Appeal has been filed by eleven laboratory incharge in different academic discipline at the Marwari College, Darbhanga. This college was made a constituent college within the meaning of Bihar Universities Act, 1976. The issue is otherwise very simple but it has been complicated by the State respondents. At this college there were Demonstrators. They sought promotion on the post of lecturers. Consequent upon the Demonstrators having become lecturers, there was void on the post of Demonstrators. It is accepted between the appellants and the State respondents, and on this there is no issue, that none of the science disciplines which needs a laboratory can function without demonstrators or like positions whatever be their nomenclature.

2. Subsequently, the positions were labelled as Laboratory In charge. As the sanction to make recruitment was not forthcoming from the State Government the Principal of the college did not have any option but to place on record that he had sought the sanction; this he did. Between 1986-87 when the University included the posts of Laboratory In charge in the budget and sent the budget to the government yet the sanction never came. It is on record that the sanction was initially sought in 1981. This is admitted by the respondents.

3. It is no bodys case that there will not be a Laboratory In charge in proportion to the ratio of the students. This is demonstrated by a communication from the Joint Secretary to the Vice Chancellor dated 17 August, 1979 (Annexure 1 to the writ petition). The record is certified that the government sat on the file and it had received a request for sanction. The ratio between the Laboratory In charge and students is to 1: 32. This is stipulated by the government order. The government is, thus, required and is obliged to act on the parameters which it had laid out for the employment of Laboratory In charge.

4. The only defence which comes in the counter affidavit of the State Government is that the sanction has not been granted. This is neither here nor there. This is not a case that the sanction had not been sought or that it was rejected.

5. This is a case of a typical inaction by the bureaucracy of tying up a simple matter with red tape. When it does not want to take any positive action then the simple way of avoiding responsibility is to sit on the file or lock it up in the cupboard. The defence that the Principal made recruitments without sanction could have a corollary if the State Government had the determination then it should have dismissed the Principal and also dismiss the Laboratory In charge as being illegal appointment.

6. The State Government has the audacity to explain in the counter affidavit that sanction was sought by the University. But it did not explain that the sanction was either granted or rejected. This is one case which only shows how the Government of Bihar works and perhaps all this in a manner and style of sitting on the file. What more servicing must be done to move the file? This, the administration has to introspect.

7. The High Court is now called upon to unravel what the State Government did not do and take a decision so that the bureaucracy in the education department could merrily write on the file that whatsoever it is proposing to do is because the High Court has ordered it so. The records stares naked in the face of those bureaucrats who sit on office files and never act on it.

8. The other argument that the Laboratory In charge had volunteered to work free of charge is a platitude which the court cannot accept. The answer to this is that an army never marches on an empty stomach. The answer is apparent that the University also did its job and the Secretariat locked up the file. The Vice Chancellor of the University approved the appointment of the Laboratory In charges in 1988 and 1992. The action on appointments had been sent to the State Government for approval. The State Government ye