The petitioner Shri Prafulla Chandra Bhowmik, who held the rank of senior clerk in the Relief and Rehabilitation Department and whose service was terminated by the second respondent, the Director of the said Department by the notice Annexure 5 dated 8-2-1959, has filed the petition praying for the issue of a Writ to quash the said order of termination.

(2) The petitioner belonged to East Bengal which is now East Pakistan and he was in Military service as a civilian clerk and he was discharged on 31-8-1947 (Annexure 6). Subsequently he was employed temporarily in the Civil Supply Depart­ment of Tripura (Annexures 7 and H) and after that temporary employment ceased, he was ap­pointed by the Chief Commissioner, Tripura, as clerk in the Relief and Rehabilitation Department in the grade Rs. 50-5-75/- on 1-8-1951 (Annexure 1). His pay in that scale was raised to Rs. 75/- with effect from 9-10-1951 (Annexure 2). Later he was appointed to the post of Assistant Supervisor, which is an upper division post, from 25-4-1953 on a pay of Rs. 80/- on the scale Rs. 80-4-100/- (An­nexure 3). Again, by Annexure 4 dated 14-10-1958 he was promoted by the Director of the De­partment as senior clerk in the scale Rs. 130-5-180/-. Thus the petitioner was in continuous service in the Department from 1-8-1951 and from the post of lower division clerk he became an Assistant Supervisor which is an upper division post and again was promoted as senior clerk and he con­tinued as senior clerk until 8-2-59.

On that date, the order Annexure H was passed by the Director of the Department stating that the conduct of the petitioner was found suspicious in 1954 in connection with certain C. I. sheets, that in July, 1958 he was found to have prepared a wrong bill for Rs. 250/- for payment to a Contractor to whom only Rs. 15/10/- was really due and that further he was suspected to be connected with the missing of two files relating to the fixation of the price of cement, that for the said reasons, declara­tion cannot be issued under Rule 3 of the Central Civil Services (Temporary Service) Rules, 1949 for the petitioner's employment in a quasi-permanent capacity, that though the charges cannot be speci­fically proved against him, he was an undesirable element and should be weeded out and that there­fore notice of termination of service under Rule 5 of the Central Civil Services (Temporary Service) Rules, 1949 should be issued. On the same date, the notice Annexure 5 was issued to him stating that his service will be terminated with effect from the date of expiry of one calendar month from the date of service of the order on him. The petitioner! filed various appeals to the Secretary, Tripura Administration, Relief and Rehabilitation Depart­ment, to the Chief Secretary of the Tripura Administration and to the Chief Commissioner but did not get any relief. Thereafter he filed the present Writ application in this Court.

(3) The petitioner's main contention is that, by his long continuous service from 1-8-1951, he had acquired the status of quasi-permanency under Rule 3 of Central Civil Services (Temporary Ser­vice) Rules, 1949 (hereinafter to be called the Temporary Service Rules), that his services cannot, therefore, be terminated under Rule 5 of the said Rules, that in any case, as he was originally ap­pointed by the Chief Commissioner of Tripura, the Director of Rehabilitation had no authority to ter­minate his service, that as the termination of his service amounted to dismissal or removal, he was entitled to the protection of Article 311(2) of the Constitution, and that as the said protection was denied to him before the termination, the order of) termination was illegal and should be set aside.

(4) For the respondents, it was pointed out that the petitioner was only a temporary servant, that the Department of Relief and Rehabilitation itself being a temporary Department the petitioner can only be a temporary servant, that though the petitioner has been in continuous Go

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