Withholding of pay as a punishment is illegal and unconstitutional.

( 1 ) THIS is a petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India for the issue of a writ of Mandamus or any other suitable direction.

( 2 ) THE petitioner has alleged that the Inspector of Schools, District Morena, vide his letter No. 3/ (1)44/20028 dated 17th December 1954 (Anuex-ure 2) appointed him as a Craft Teacher on a pay, the scale of which was Rs. 40-3-70. In the letter of appointment it was said that the applicant, who was appointed as a Craft Teacher, shall not be taken in the general line (teaching line) and he was further told that he would not be allowed to appear in any examination. These were the conditions of his appointment. After his appointment as a Craft Teacher, he was asked to work in the general line as a Teacher at Vagwaj. The petitioner wrote to the Inspector of Schools that this was in breach of the conditions of his appointment. In spite of his protest he continued to be in the teaching line. He worked in the Middle School Bhesroli, Pargana Jaura as a teacher from where he was transferred to Vijaypur Middle School, which he joined on the 15th November 1957. He was assigned the task of teaching the adults in the night school. After he had taken over the charge of the Night School, he found that there was no arrangement for light and he wrote letters to the higher authorities to make provision for it. In reply the Department wrote to the petitioner that he might meet the expenses from his own pocket and later on he would be paid. The Inspector of Panchavat Samaj Sewak Vijaypur and the Secretary Teachers' Association visited the school and found the work of the petitioner satisfactory, but in the report they said that as there were no proper arrangements for the light and seating the adult education could not be continued properly. It seems that the Inspector of Schools also inspected the Adult School, and, in his report he made a remark to the effect that if the work or the petitioner would not bo found satisfactory, his salary would not be disbursed to him. On these observations of the Inspector, the Assistant Inspector of Schools stopped the salary of the petitioner and since then the applicant is without obvious means of subsistence. The order of the Assistant Inspector of Schools is Annexure 2. The complaint of the petitioner is that in spite of the repeated reminders for his salary, he has not been paid his emoluments from the month of January 1959. The main grievance of the petitioner is that "stoppage of his salary is illegal" and without jurisdiction and that it is no fault of his, if Adult Classes could not be carried on properly owing to the lack of provision of light by the Department itself.

( 3 ) IN the return filed by Mr. Ramesh Datt. Mishra, Inspector of Schools, on behalf of himself and the Government of Madhya Pradesh, he seems to make light of the assurance given to the petitioner that he will not be taken in the teaching line and he contends that the Government Department is not bound by such assurances. He has stated that the term in the letter of appointment binds the petitioner and that his Department is not bound to observe it. I have referred to this part of the Return for what it is worth. In this petition I am only concerned with the stoppage of the salary, which 5s a punishment imposed upon the petitioner. In passing, I may observe that I am really surprised at the stand taken by the Department in respect of the assurance given to the petitioner. How far the Department is justified in driving a round peg in a square hole is a question which I leave to the discretion of the Education Department. But the attitude taken is one which requires reconsideration. ( 4 ) THE question which I now propose to examine is whether the Education Department was justified in stopping the pay of the petitioner. The Education Department admits that when the petitioner asked for the provision of light for night classes, he was told that he should spend his own money to get t