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1957 Supreme(Raj) 290

Rajasthan High Court
Wanchoo C.J. & Bhandari, J.
Kanhaiyalal - Appellant
Versus
The State of Rajastha - Respondents
Civil Writ Petition No.117 of 1957
Decided On : December 16, 1957

Advocates Appeared:
R.K. Rastogi, for Applicant; C.B. Bhargava, Deputy Government Advocate

Headnote:(a) Constitution of India, Art. 226—Jurisdiction of High Court—Dismissal of Government servant for no reason.(b) Government Servants—Rajasthan Civil Services (Classification, Control and Appeal Rules), R. 15—Government servant acting as intermediary in payment of money—No good and sufficient reason for dismissal.

       

Wanchoo, C.J.—This is an application under Art. 226 by Kanhaiyalal who was a peon in Tehsil Malpura against his dismissal.

2. The facts which have led to this petition may be briefly mentioned. Kanhaiyalal had been in service since 1930. A complaint was made against him of the 26th of August, 1952 by on Modu Daroga before the Sub-divisional Officer, Malpura in which it was said that the applicant had taken Rs. 4/- from him, viz, Rs. 1/-- as bribe and Rs. 3/- for getting an application prepared and presented. It was made clear further by Modu in his statement that Rs. 3/--were paid for getting the application prepared through Chiranjilal petition-writer and Re. 1/-- was paid as bribe. It was found on enquiry that Rs. 3/--were actually paid by Kanhaiyalal to Chiranjilal Petition-writer on behalf of Modu. As for the bribe of Rs. 1/-, the Tehsildar was of opinion that the case relating to bribe had not been duly proved. Consequently, the Tehsildar recommended that the applicant should be transferred and his promotion should be stopped for a certain time. This was done by the Tehsildar as the papers were sent to him by the Sub-divisional Officer for enquiry and report. The Tehsildar completed the enquiry within one day and submitted his report to the Sub-divisional Officer on the 27th of August, 1955. The Sub-Divisional Officer thereupon proceeded to hold on that very day against the report of the Tehsildar, that Kanhaiyalal had taken Re. 1/- as bribe. He also then and there dismissed him. There was an appeal against this order of dismissal which was also dismissed. Then the applicant came to this Court in writ and while that writ application was pending, the order of dismissal, dated the 17th of August, 1955 was cancelled because it was realised that it had been passed without complying with the provisions of Art. 311 of the Constitution. Consequently the writ application in this Court was dismissed.

3. Now we come to what happened after the writ application had been dismissed. The Sub-divisional Officer gave notice on the 17th of September, 1956 under Art. 311 (2) of the Constitution. As this notice stands, it does not seem to show that the Sub-divisional Officer had applied his mind to the proceedings which had taken place earlier and had come to certain conclusions himself. But giving a liberal and charitable interpretation to what the Sub-divisional Officer has said, we may take it that this notice informed the applicant that the Sub-divisional Officer had come to the conclusion that "he had intermeddled with the litigants for no ostensible reasons and that this amounted to serious dereliction of duty and gross misbehaviour on the part of the Government servant." Consequently, the applicant was asked to show cause why he should not be dismissed. The order of dismissal was passed by the Sub-divisional Officer on the 30th of March, 1957 and seems to have gone much beyond what was said in the notice of the 17th of March, 1916. In this order, the Sub-divisional Officer seems to have held that the applicant had accepted a bribe, though no such thing was alleged in the notice. He also held that the applicant had bad intention, though what that means is not clear to us. in any case, the Sub-divisional Officer proceeded to dismiss the applicant and gave him what he called severe punishment because corruption had been proved against him. We must say that when in the notice the Sub-divisional Officer had said nothing about bribery or corruption, it was not right for him to take into account bribery and corruption when determining the quantum of punishment.

4. This time again the applicant went in appeal to the Collector and the Collector dismissed the appeal. It is this order of the Collector which is really before us. The Collector upheld the order of the Sub divisional Officer dismissing the appeal in these words (our translation) :—

"It is true that Kanhaiyalal took Rs. 3/from Moduram at the request of Chiranjilal, petition writer and pa




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