Termination of employment based on fraudulent documents is valid without a hearing, negating any employment rights.

JUDGMENT :

AMBUJ NATH, J.

1. Heard the parties.

2. All these writ petitions arise out of the same cause of action, as such, all these writ petitions are being disposed of by a common order.

3. The petitioners have filed these writ applications for quashing the order passed in Memo No. 438 dated 08.02.2017, passed by respondent No. 3, District Superintendent of Education, Dhanbad, whereby and wherein, the respondent No. 3 has terminated the services of the petitioners without providing an opportunity of being heard.

4. The petitioners have further prayed for issuance of directions upon the respondents to reinstate their services with payment of the entire salary for the period they have actually worked alongwith arrears with immediate effect.

5. The petitioners had qualified in Teacher's Eligibility Test 2012 for Assistant Teacher of Class-I to V, held in the month of April, 2013 and subsequently, by virtue of which Appointment Memo No. 4804 dated 14.12.2015 were issued to the petitioners. The petitioner Md. Manjar Alam in [W.P. (S) No. 2260 of 2017] has joined at Govindpur, Dhanbad on 08.01.2016. The petitioners Pintu Kumar, Pankaj Kumar and Archana Kumari in [W.P. (S) No. 2263 of 2017] have also joined as Assistant Teachers in District of Dhanbad and the petitioners Tabrez Alam and Sazid Mansoor in [W.P. (S) No. 2277 of 2017] joined as an Assistant Teacher at Tundi, Dhanbad. The case of the respondents is that the certificate furnished by the petitioners to the effect that they have qualified in the Teachers Eligibility Test Exam held in 2012 was found to be fake. Accordingly, Respondent No. 3, District Superintendent of Education, Dhanbad issued their termination order.

6. Learned counsel for the petitioners submitted that the order of termination of the petitioners issued by the respondent No. 3, District Superintendent of Education, Dhanbad is arbitrary and is devoid of the principles of equity because the petitioners were not given an opportunity of being heard.

7. It was further submitted that the respondents should have initiated departmental proceeding against the petitioners and if the petitioners were found guilty, then termination order would have been passed.

8. Reliance has been placed upon order passed by a learned Single Judge of this Court in W.P. (S) No. 4480 of 2009 wherein the learned Single Judge held that:

“6. The petitioner since a regular government employee and as such, he is also entitled to be provided adequate and sufficient opportunity to defend himself before dismissing him from service, because the dismissal is a very harsh punishment but, from perusal of the said order dated 2.7.2009, it is apparent that mainly on the basis of show cause notice the service of the petitioner has been dismissed which according to me is not justified in view of the fact that the respondent authorities ought to have initiate a departmental proceeding before imposing major punishment of dismissal after five years from the date of appointment of the petitioner.”

9. Mr. Ashish Kumar Shekhar, learned A.C. to S.C. (L&C)-II submitted that the appointment of the petitioners was procured on the basis of forged document and orders of appointment can be treated as voidable at the option of the employee and the respondents where very well within their right to terminate the services of the petitioners without holding any enquiry, on the basis of report given by respondent No. 4 the Chairman, Jharkhand Academic Council, Ranchi.

10. Respondent No. 4 the Chairman, Jharkhand Academic Council, Ranchi has also appeared and filed supplementary counter affidavit, it has been specifically stated at paragraph Nos.10 and 11 of the supplementary counter affidavit that the petitioners had furnished certificates showing that they had qualified in TET certificate, 2012, which was not issued by Jharkhand Academic Council, Ranchi and accordingly, they had issued a letter to the other respondents informing them about this fact.

11. Reliance has been placed b