( 1 ) THE petitioner is an Administrative Officer of the School Board, Municipal Corporation, Ahmedabad. By filing this petition, he has challenged his suspension order dated 5th March, 2003. By the said order, the petitioner is suspended from the existing post of Administrative Officer. The said suspension order is passed by the Municipal Commissioner. The contents of the said suspension order are that one Anwarbhai Rasulbhai Shaikh, who was serving at the relevant time as Watchman at the Rajpur-Gomtipur Urdu School No. 2, misbehaved with a minor girl student, Rashidabanu, who was a student of Standard VII. Because of the said misconduct, he was dismissed from service and the said Watchman thereafter, raised Industrial Dispute and the Labour Court rejected the prayer for reinstatement and the said employee filed Special Civil Application No. 5696 of 2001 before this Court. The Petitioner, as the Administrative Officer, yet, put a proposal before the School Board for settling the matter and was instrumental in getting Resolution No. 150 dated 20. 8. 2002 being passed for the purpose of taking the said employe back in service. By doing so, the petitioner has committed a grave misconduct and that departmental enquiry is contemplated against him and contemplating the enquiry, the said suspension order is passed. The said order is Annexure a in the compilation. The said suspension order is impugned at the instance of the said Administrative Officer in this Special Civil Application.

( 2 ) THIS Court has admitted this petition and the matter was fixed for final hearing. No affidavit-in-reply is filed by any of the respondents. The State Government is also joined subsequently as respondent No. 4 and the State is also served. However, nobody has even entered appearance on behalf of the State Government. The State was required to be joined because, it was contended on behalf of the Corporation that the aforesaid order of suspension, passed by the Commissioner, is approved by the State Government on 20th March, 2003. The said order of approval of the State is also placed on record.

( 3 ) IN order to decide whether the order of suspension is legal and valid, certain factual aspects are required to be taken into consideration. It is not in dispute that one Anwarbhai Rasulbhai Shaikh, who was serving as a Watchman at the Rajpur-Gomtipur Urdu School No. 2, which is under the administration of the School Board, misbehaved with one minor girl Rashidabanu, and after enquiry, he was dismissed from service. It is not in dispute that he challenged the said order before the Labour Court by way of Reference (LCA) No. 1104 of 1995. The Labour Court rejected the prayer for reinstatement with continuity of service. However, the Labour Court awarded compensation of Rs. 20,000. 00 in favour of the said watchman. A copy of the Award of the Labour Court is placed on record by Mr. Nagarkar, learned Advocate appearing for the Municipal Corporation. The concerned workman filed Special Civil Application No. 5696 of 2001 before this Court. In the said Special Civil Application, the Court had issued notice. The matter was pending at the notice stage. In the said matter, consent terms were submitted before this Court signed by Advocates for both the sides, i. e. the Advocate of the petitioner and the Advocate of the School Board as well as the concerned petitioner and the Administrative Officer (the present petitioner ). The consent terms are produced at page 28, Annexure g. By the said consent terms, the said employee is reinstated in service as a Watchman with effect from 1st October, 2002 and the said employee has agreed not to claim any back wages or any monetary benefit from the School Board for the intervening period. The concerned employee has given his undertaking that he will attend to his duties regularly and he will not commit any misconduct during the tenure of his service in the School Board and in view of the said consent terms,