The postal department is liable for nominal damages for negligence in delivering an interview notice late to the petitioner, resulting in the petitioner missing the interview.

The facts are sufficiently recorded in the order of February 3, 2016, but some salient features require repetition.

2. The petitioner applied for a post under the West Bengal Power Development Corporation Limited pursuant to an advertisement issued on March 18, 2013. The grievance of the petitioner is that the notice dated October 28, 2015 for the interview convened to be held on November 19, 2015 was received by the petitioner on December 22, 2015 long after the interview had been concluded. The first respondent Corporation has produced copy records to demonstrate that the notice to the petitioner was issued on the date referred to therein and the same posted on October 29, 2015.

3. The Corporation also represented on January 25, 2016 when the petition was taken up in right earnest for the first time that the panel of successful candidates had already been prepared and the letters of appointment issued and posts filled up. On January 25, 2016, the Post Master General was directed to file a report “after completing a thorough inquiry as to how a postal article takes more than forty days to reach from ICH Sainthia to Rampurhat H. O.”

4. The order required the report to identify the persons responsible for the delay so that appropriate proceedings could ultimately be instituted against such persons and such persons made liable to compensate the petitioner for the petitioner failing to attend the interview.

5. Pursuant to such order, a report was filed by the Directorate of Postal Services, Kolkata Region dated January 28, 2016 as the Post Master General, Kolkata Region was said to be on tour. The report revealed that a bag containing postal articles numbered as BBW0016297099 was apparently left behind “under the table of Speed Branch” and it was not discovered prior to December 22, 2015 whereupon it was immediately opened and the articles were delivered to the addressees. The report indicated that the relevant bag had been accidentally misplaced without there being any mala fide intention on anybody’s part. Certain persons were also named in the report.

6. The report was noticed in the order of February 23, 2016 which called for affidavits to be filed. The said order also observed as follows:-

“The postal department seems to think that since the exercise of assessment of damages may not be appropriately conducted in proceedings under Article 226 of the Constitution, there is sufficient room to wriggle out of the liability. Implicit in the submission on behalf of the postal department is that these minor matters do not require to be taken note of or the postal department cannot be made accountable for the inconvenience or damage caused to the petitioner.

The smugness on the part of the public servants that they cannot be removed from service or otherwise penalised unless caught red-handed, has to be dispelled. Into the 70th year of independence of the country, a culture must be developed where public servants are accountable to ordinary citizens and do not behave like the rulers who left the country or were forced to leave in 1947.

The postal department is put on notice that damages as due to the petitioner will be assessed in course of the present proceedings for the colossal act of negligence on its part which resulted in the petitioner losing out on an opportunity of obtaining an employment.”

7. The postal department claims that since the postal article was delivered late because a bag had been accidentally misplaced and there was neither any deliberate omission on the part of the postal authorities to deliver the postal article nor any mala fides on the part of any employee to cause the delay, no damages can be awarded against the postal department as the postal department had no knowledge of the contents of the post article addressed to the petitioner. The postal department also says that appropriate proceedings have been instituted against the concerned persons, though the petitioner says that the postal department is mere