The main legal point established in the judgment is the invalidity of the petitioner's appointment on compassionate grounds and the lack of entitlement for a grand son to be appointed on compassionate grounds at the time of the petitioner's appointment.

Rakesh Kumar, J.

The petitioner, invoking writ jurisdiction of this court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, has prayed for quashing of an order dated 10.7.1998 passed by the Deputy Development Commissioner cum Chief Executive Officer, Zila Parishad, Khagaria, whereby the petitioner was dismissed from service with immediate effect. The petitioner has further prayed for commanding the respondent to allow the petitioner to continue on the post of Chaukidar, Zila Parishad, Inspection Bunglow, Gogri without any break. Short fact of the case as pleaded in the writ petition is that the petitioner was appointed on the post of Chaukidar, Inspection Bunglow, Gogri, in the month of February, 1983 on compassionate ground. The grand father of the petitioner namely Doman Ali while functioning as Chaukidar, Inspection Bungalow, Gogri, died due to cancer on 6.8.1981 and thereafter, the petitioner who was looking after his grand mother, was appointed on compassionate ground. He thereafter, worked at different places continuously without any break and he received salary up to the month of October, 1993 and thereafter he was not paid salary till the date of filing of the writ petition. As per petitioner vide letter dated 3.5.1995 (Annexure-5) he was directed to submit his appointment letter and also to give explanation with regard to discrepancy in respect of his date of birth. He gave explanation along with an affidavit stating therein that his appointment letter was misplaced. It was also indicated that his correct date of birth was 28.4.1964 as mentioned in the certificate of Class VII and date of birth mentioned in the matriculation certificate i.e. 1.1.1967 was incorrect, even thereafter, by order contained in Annexure-1 he was dismissed from service.

2. Sri Laxmi Narayan Das, learned counsel for the petitioner while assailing the order has firstly argued that the order impugned whereby the petitioner has been dismissed from service has been passed without initiating departmental proceeding and as such order impugned is liable to be set aside. He submits that petitioner being grand son of the deceased employee was appointed on compassionate ground in the year 1983 itself and he without any break was continuously discharging his duty till the date of order of dismissal, and as such, the order impugned is contrary to the principle of natural justice. It was argued that though at the time of initial appointment of the petitioner in the year 1983 grand son of deceased employee was not entitled for being appointed on compassionate ground but subsequently in the year 1995 the Government of Bihar had come out with an instruction whereby grand son was also made eligible to be appointed on compassionate ground. According to Sri Das since the petitioner has continued on his post for such a long time and even before order of dismissal the notification was issued enabling grand son of deceased employee to be appointed on compassionate ground, the petitioner was not required to be dismissed on such ground. He further submits that it is true that before the authority concerned certificates showing contradictory date of birth of the petitioner were brought on record but in the matriculation certificate of the petitioner error had occurred in respect of date of birth of the petitioner. The petitioner's correct date of birth as 28.4.1964 was recorded in the school leaving certificate, which was initially produced by the petitioner at the time of his appointment. However, subsequently in the matriculation certificate date of birth of the petitioner was incorrectly recorded as 1.1.1967. After noticing that error had occurred in the matriculation certificate the petitioner tried to get the same corrected and as such he approached the Zila Parishad for returning the same (matriculation certificate) so that he may take steps for getting the date of birth corrected in the matriculation certificate. Despite his best effort Zila Parishad had n