MEENAKSHI Vs. DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Srimati Meenakshi was appointed temporarily as a headmistress in the taluk development board girls' high school, Mudigere, on July 9, 1963. This appointment was made by the concerned taluk development board. On January 28, 1964 she was instructed by the chief executive officer of the taluk development board to hand over charge of the institution to Sri Y. M. Mahabala Rao. The memorandum issued to Smt. Meenakshi stated that Sri Y. M. Mahabala Rao had been newly posted as headmaster in accordance with the memorandum issued by the Deputy Director of Public Instruction of January 14, 1964. Srimati Meenakshi is the petitioner and Sri Mahabala Rao is respondent 3. The petitioner asks us in this writ petition to quash the order by which her services were terminated, and, the main ground on which we are asked to do so if that the appointing authority for the post of a headmaster in a taluk board high school is the taluk board, and not the Director of Public Instruction or the Deputy Director of Public Instruction, and that in directing the petitioner to hand over charge of her office, on the basis of the memorandum issued by the Deputy Director of Public Instruction, the taluk board abdicated its power and acted without the authority of law.

(2.) It is seen that the papers produced before us that the petitioner was in service in the district board elementary school in South Kanara between the years 1945 and 1951 and that she served in the South Kanara district Board High School as a graduate assistant from June 2, 1956 till July 13, 1963. It is also seen that when she was appointed as temporary headmistress in the taluk board high school, Mudigere, she sent in her resignation of the graduate assistant's post in Karkala, and that resignation was accepted by the headmaster of that school on July 13, 1963.

(3.) What is also equally clear is that on January 14, 1964 the Director of Public Instruction in Mysore made an order promoting respondent 3 on a temporary basis as the headmaster of the taluk board high school in Mudigere, and the description of respondent 3 in that memorandum prepared by the Director of Public Instruction shows that respondent 3 was an assistant master in the district board high school, Huliyar, at some antecedent stage. It is on the basis of this promotion by which the taluk development board, Mudigere, considered itself bound that the petitioner was informed by the memorandum issued to her January 28, 1964 that she should hand over charge to respondent 3. By a subsequent order made on February 29, 1964 the petitioner was informed that her services were terminated with effect from January 25, 1964 and that memorandum reads :