ATTIKARIBETTU GRAMA PANCHAYATH, ATTIKARIBETTU VILLAGE Vs. GANESHA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This intra-court Appeal seeks to calls in question a learned Single Judge s order dtd. 6/4/2023 whereby Private Respondent s W.P.No.543/2022 (S-DIS) having been favoured, his dismissal from service is set at naught with a direction to reinstate him in the position forthwith. Learned Judge has reserved liberty to the Appellant Gram Panchayath to initiate disciplinary action, if it so desires against the Respondent herein.

(2.) Having heard the learned counsel for the parties and having perused the Appeal papers, we decline indulgence in the matter being broadly in agreement with the reasoning of the learned Single Judge. Admittedly, only a criminal case was registered against the Respondent herein and the same has been still pending. That being the position, he could not have been dismissed from service without holding any enquiry.

(3.) In a society like ours, job more often than not, happens to be predominant source of livelihood and therefore snatching away a job (in public employment), like the one that has happened in the case at hand, virtually amounts to taking away the means of livelihood of the employee. That offends the pith and substance of fundamental right to life and liberty constitutionally guaranteed under Article 21 in the light of OLGA TELLIS vs BOMBAY MUNICIPAL CORPORATION, AIR 1986 SC 180. That apart, no employee can be punished that too by way of dismissal from service without giving an opportunity of hearing. The principles of natural justice as being a part of Article 14. Ours being a Welfare State, Article 12 - Entities have to conduct themselves as model employers and their decisions should be pregnant with human values. It is worth reproducing what Justice Felix Frankfurter of US Supreme Court had observed in JOINT ANTI-FASCIST REFUGEE COMMITTEE Vs McGRATH, 95 L Ed 817: