N NAGARAJA RAO Vs. ADDITIONAL DISTRICT JUDGE CHITRADURGA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner, a teacher in the first respondent-school is aggrieved by the superior placement of respondents 3 to 5 herein much above him in the cadre seniority list and the. promotion of respondent-3 as headmaster who according to the writ petitioner had since retired and it appears in his place the fourth respondent was posted as headmaster in the school in preference to the petitioner who says he is much senior lo respondents 3 to 5.

(2.) When respondent No. 3 was promoted as the headmaster he filed an appealbe fore the District Judge, Chitradurga. Objections were taken regarding the maintainability of the appeal itself on the ground that the petitioner had not produced before the Court a copy of the order that affected the service conditions of the petitioner. It appears he took the trouble of obtaining a certified copy of the said order and produced it before the Tribunal who instead of adverting lo the same has taken the easy way out by pointing the exit to the petitioner on the ground that the said order which is adverse to his interest having not been communicated lo the petitioner, he cannot maintain an appeal against the same by making a grievance regarding his service conditions being adversely affected.

(3.) Technicalities apart when the petitioner produced the certified copy of the order under which respondent No. 3 was appointed as headmaster and the seniority list in which respondents 3 to 5 were placed above him, there was lillle difficulty in treating those documents produced by him, as tantamounting to a communication of adverse orders. The Tribunal certainly should not have declined to scrutinize the documents produced by the petitioner. The meaning of the word 'communicate' as found in Longman Concise English Dictionary is 'to convey knowledge of or information about; make known'. There is no gainsay in denying that when a document is obtained from its source through legitimate means it stands communicated. If communication merely means to make known or to convey knowledge of or information about, then when the respondcnl-2 gave a certified copy lo the petitioner the same was communicated. It would be somewhat of a paradox to say that although you may have got it from me because I have not sent it lo you, the same has not been communicated in the eye of law. The Tribunal should have taken care to see whether the documents produced by the pclilioncr did affecl adversely the service condition of the petitioner before turning down the appeal without examining it on merits. I need hardly add the Tribunal should not have been overhasly in somehow disposing off the appeal particularly by taking a technical stance. It must realize that it is there to do substantial justice. When the man produced the order in relation lo which he had a complaint, the Tribunal had grossly erred in declining to look into those documents, latching on to the circumstance that the said documents were not communicated lo the petitioner, and, therefore could not be assailed.