Point of Law: Only in those cases where either there was no appointment letter or their letters were found to be forged, the extreme order of termination of their services was passed.

Headnote:
Constitution of India, Article 309 – Order of termination - Order of termination was challenged - Appointment cannot be called to be illegal, though it may be irregular and, in any case, their appointments were made by the appointing authority and even presuming there is a violation in the process of their appointment, since they had already put in long years of service, an opportunity of hearing in the form of a show cause notice was liable to be given and a speaking order in each case was liable to be passed.
Finding of the Court:
Two members in consultation with themselves, shall co-opt a third member of the Committee, who should be at least a Secretary rank officer -Three-member Committee shall examine these documents. All the appellants before us are at liberty to show their documents before the Committee within a period of three weeks from today- Date which has been suggested by the learned Advocate General, Assam and the learned counsel for the appellants is 10.12.2021. Let all the appellants appear before the Committee on 10.12.2021 in the office of the Director of Health Services, Assam, Hengrabari, Guwahati. The learned Advocate General, Assam shall also give all logistical details to the learned counsel for the appellants in order to facilitate appearance of the appellants before the Committee -it is also apparent that an observation has been made by the learned Single Judge in Paragraph No. 19 of impugned order to the effect that none of the petitioners could show an appointment letter. It has been canvassed before this Court that what was submitted before the learned Single Judge was that none of the appellants/writ petitioners were having an appointment order in their favour, whereas some of the writ appellants before this Court, we must say in all fairness, have shown documents which are said to be their appointment letter. We have studied the enquiry report and the findings of the Committees in great detail - In case of Barpeta district there were 33 cases, out of which the Committee found 29 to be genuine only in cases of 4 candidates (Surveillance Worker), the finding was that they were not having genuine appointment order/documents. So, it is not the case that these appointment orders which are being shown to us were not examined by the Screening Committee. Therefore, it is not a case where an opportunity has not been given to the appellants/ writ petitioners to prove the veracity of their documents and justify their appointment as Surveillance Worker.
Result: Appeal dismissed

JUDGMENT :

Sudhanshu Dhulia, J.

1. All these Writ Appeals have been filed before this Court challenging the judgment of the learned Single Judge dated 13.03.2020 by which the writ petitions filed by the appellants/writ petitioners were dismissed.

2. The appellants/writ petitioners were appointed as Surveillance Workers under the Health Department in various districts of the State of Assam from 1999 onwards and at some point of time in the year 2015/2016 it was detected that many of the Surveillance Workers were never appointed by the concerned authority. In fact, no procedure was adopted for their appointment and in many of the cases there were no appointment order at all. Consequently, an exercise was undertaken by the Government of Assam in the year 2016/2017 for detecting such cases.

3. Before we proceed to discuss the exercise undertaken by the Government of Assam, a brief description is considered necessary as regarding the post of Surveillance Worker in the State of Assam. Pending finalisation of Service Rules to be framed under Article 309 of the Constitution of India, the Governor of Assam was pleased to pass an Order regulating recruitment and the conditions of service of persons appointed as Para-Medical and Non-Gazetted Staff under the establishment of the Director of Health Services, Assam. The Order is known as “The Assam Vector Borne Disease Control Programme Workers Service Orders, 2006”. At Paragraph No.3 of the Order, Class and Cadres are given. It reads as under:-

“3. Class and Cadres :

(1) The Service shall consist of the following Classes and Cadres :-

(i) Surveillance Worker (SW) and Basic Health Worker (BHW).

(ii) The Surveillance Worker (SW) and Basic Health Worker (BHW), working in various institutions in a district shall constitute separate cadre in respect of each district.

(2) The service may also include any cadre or post as laid down by the Government from time to time, to be included in a cadre of the service.

(3) The status of the members of the service shall be non-gazetted in Class-III service under the Government.”

The method of recruitment is given in Paragraph Nos.5 and 6. It reads as under:-

“5. Method of Recruitment :

Recruitment to the service shall be made in the following manner:-

Recruitment to all cadres of service shall be made by direct recruitment in accordance with paragraph 6 of these orders.

6. Direct Recruitment:

Direct Recruitment to cadre of SW, BHW shall be made by the Appointing Authority on the basis of selection made by the Board in order of preference in the following manner:-

(1) (i) Before the end of each year the Appointing Authority shall make an assessment of the number of vacancies, which are likely to occur in the next year and work out the details about reservation for candidates belonging to Schedule Castes, Schedule Tribes or any other category as laid down by the Government.

(ii) The Appointing Authority shall then invite applications through advertisement to be publish in at least two widely circulated local news papers of Assam.

(iii) On receipt of applications in response to the advertisement, Appointing Authority shall prepare a statements of all the candidates and forward it to the Board together with details about vacancies and reservation as assessed under clause (i) of this sub-paragraph and copies of advertisement and the original applications of the candidates and such other information as may be considered necessary for consideration of Board. The Appointing Authority shall simultaneously request the Board to recommend a list of candidates in order of preference containing names equal to the number of vacant posts as advertised.

(iv) The Board shall make the selection by taking into account the academic record of candidates and performance in the interview and recommend a list of successful candidates in order of preference containing names equal

Click Here to Read the rest of this document

2021 Supreme(Gau) 503

Point of Law: Only in those cases where either there was no appointment letter or their letters were found to be forged, the extreme order of termination of their services was passed.

Cases Referred (3)