JUDGMENT :

Suneet Kumar, J.

1. Heard learned counsel for the parties.

2. The writ petition is being decided, on consent, without calling for counter-affidavit.

3. Petitioner claims to have been appointed Bandi Rakshak in January 1980 at District Jail, Deoria. It is contended that he continued until November 1985, thereafter, on oral information to the Authorities that his mother is ill, he proceeded on leave and thereafter never returned on duty.

It appears, thereafter, he filed an application under the Right to Information Act, 2005 (R.T.I. Act), seeking information regarding his services rendered with the respondent-Jail Authorities. In the information furnished by the Appellate Authority under the R.T.I. Act, it is noted that service record of the applicant is not available as the matter has been raised after 33 years, the attendance register from October 1980 to February 1981 is the only record available.

4. In the backdrop of the information received under the R. T.I. Act, petitioner seeks following relief:

"to issue a writ order or direction in the nature of mandamus directing to the respondent authority to consider the claim of the petitioner and grant with all consequential benefit of the service period which was done by the petitioner."

5. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that it Was incumbent upon the respondent authorities to have terminated the services of the petitioner after adopting due process of law. Since, the services of the petitioner was not terminated following the service rules petitioner is entitled to arrears of salary and retiral dues.

6. The argument, though attractive on face value lacks merit. As per the case of the petitioner, he abandoned the service in 1985 and never returned thereafter; petitioner is presently aged about 63 years as is being informed by the learned counsel for the petitioner; no service record of the petitioner is available, except the attendance register of five months, therefore, it cannot be said, in the absence of record, that petitioner was duly appointed or continued in service after 1985.

7. Petitioner has specifically pleaded in paragraph No. 4 of the writ petition that he left the service in 1985 on oral information to the authorities, and thereafter, never returned to work, meaning thereby petitioner abandoned the service in 1985 on his own. He is not entitled to any consequential benefit for the reason that the competent authority had not taken any action terminating the services of the petitioner upon abandonment.

8. It is settled law that a Government servant cannot be termed as a slave, he has a right to abandon the service any time voluntarily by submitting his resignation and alternatively, not joining the duty and remaining absent for long. Absence from duty in the beginning may be misconduct but when absence is for a very long period, it may amount to voluntarily abandonment of service and in that eventuality, the bonds of service come to an end automatically without requiring any order to be passed by the employer.

9. In Jeewanlal (1929) Ltd., Calcutta v. Its Workmen, AIR 1961 SC 1567, the Apex Court held:

"........if an employee continues to be absent from duty without obtaining leave and in an unauthorised manner for such a long period of time that an inference may reasonably be drawn from such absence that by his absence he has abandoned service, then such long unauthorised absence may legitimately be held to cast a break in continuity of service.....We would like to make it clear that.....there would be class of cases where long unauthorised absence may reasonably give rise to an inference that such service is intended to be abandoned by the employee."

Similarly, in Shahoodul Haque v. Registrar, Co-Operative Societies, Bihar, AIR 1974 SC 1896, the Apex Court observed as under:

"The undenied and undeniable fact that the appellant had actually abandoned his post or duty for an exceedingly long period, without sufficient grounds for his absence, is so glaring tha