The main legal point established in the judgment is the application of the rule of ejusdem generis to interpret the expression 'any officer' in Section 3(3) of the Bihar Public Demands Recovery Act, aligning it with the preceding words 'Collector' and 'Sub-Divisional Officer' to make the provision operate in a meaningful way.

Aftab Alam, J.

1. This Batch of appeals filed by the Bihar State Credit & Investment Corporation Limited (hereinafter referred to as the Corporation) is directed against the common judgment and order dated 14.1.2003 passed by a learned Single Judge of this Court by which a set of sixteen (16) writ petitions filed by the respondents were allowed holding that the appointment of the Assistant Law Officer of the Corporation as Certificate Officer for recovery of its loans was bad and illegal. Those writ petitions were filed by different borrowers of the Corporation. They were badly in default in repayment of their loans. For recovery of its loan amounts, therefore, the Corporation had instituted proceedings against them under the Bihar Public Demands Recovery Act. The writ petitioners assailed the proceedings of the respective certificate cases before this court on a number of grounds, including violation of procedural safeguards. But in all writ petitions there was a common ground that raised a jurisdictional issue. All the writ petitions questioned the appointment of Mr. O.P. Singh, Assistant Law Officer (referred to as the Law Officer in the judgment under appeal) of the Corporation as the Certificate Officer under Section 3(3) of the Act. On behalf of the writ petitioners, it was contended that the concerned person not being an Officer of the State Government could not be appointed as .Certificate Officer under the Act.in any event, since he was an employee of the Corporation his appointment as Certificate Officer for recovery of the Corporations loan suffered from the vice of bias and offended the principle No man can be the Judge in his own cause.

2. In view of the common ground all the sixteen writ petitions were consolidated into one set and were heard on the preliminary jurisdictional issue.

3. On a consideration of the rival submissions and the decisions relied upon by the two sides, the Writ Court upheld the writ petitioners challenge and allowed all the writ petitions without adverting to any other grounds peculiar to any particular case in that set. This batch of appeals is filed against the aforesaid judgment and order of the learned Single Judge.

4. From the judgment coming under appeal, it appears that apart from the main submissions advanced on behalf of the Corporation, it was also faintly argued that Mr. O.P. Singh had come to the Corporation on deputation from the State Government and the Corporation itself was a company in which the majority shares were held by the State Government. Hence, he would qualify for the expression "any Officer" even within the restricted meaning sought to be put on it by the writ petitioners. The Writ Court roundly rejected the submission. Before us no such submission was made in defence of the appointment of Mr. O.P. Singh and the arguments were confined to the core issue.

5. Both Mr. Jitendra Singh, appearing for the Corporation in all but two appeals and Mr. A. Amanullah appearing on its behalf in those two appeals proceeded on the premise that Mr. O.P. Singh was an employee of the Corporation and justified his appointment as Certificate Officer on that basis. Mr. Singh contended that the expression "any Officer" in Section 3(3) of the Act should be understood to mean what it says, literally. He submitted that the Writ Court committed a material error in giving to the expression a narrow and restricted meaning. He further submitted that the rule of ejusdem generis had no application to the provision in question and the Writ Court misapplied it and unduly emasculated the expression "any Officer". He also submitted that the officer concerned had no personal stakes or interests in the proceedings held for the recovery of the Corporations loans and, therefore, it was quite unjustified to hold his appointment bad on the principle of bias.

6. Learned counsel seemed to draw a great deal of strength from the fact that one of the decisions (of the Delhi High Court in Rajiv Anand V