N SNAGARAJA RAO Vs. STATE OF MYSORE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner before us was originally serving as a Conductor in Bangalore Transport Co. Ltd. On 1st October 1956 the Government took over the said concern and all the employees of the original Company continued to be the employees of the Government. The present petitioner also continued to bo employed by the Government as a Conductor on the same terms and conditions on which he served the previous company. On 26-10-56 the General Manager of the Bangalore Transport Service passed an order the validity of which is now being questioned in this petition. The said order reads as follows:

(2.) The learned Advocate for the petitioner contended before us that, in view of the provisions of Article 311 of the Constitution, his client was entitled to be given notice for explaining his conduct before he was dismissed from service. He urged that the order complained of amounts to an order of dismissal and under the said Article no such orders can be made, unless he is given an opportunity of showing cause against the action proposed to be taken in regard to him. I should mention that it is not disputed before us that no such opportunity in fact was given to the petitioner. The question raised is whether or not he was entitled to be given such an opportunity and in order to determine it two further questions have to be considered, namely (a) whether the petitioner is a civil servant as contemplated in Article 311 and (b) whether the action of the authority concerned amounted to a dismissal. The learned Advocate for the petitioner relied on a number of decisions including a decision of this court reported in D. P. Raghunath v. State of Coorg, AIR 1957 Mys 8 (A), and also on a decision of the Calcutta High Court in Balai Chand v. N. Roy Choudhury, AIR1954 Cal 495 (B), in support of his contention that Article 311 was applicable to the present case and the petitioner could not be dismissed without being given an opportunity of showing cause against the action proposed to be taken against him.

(3.) At this stago it would be convenient to refer to the material provisions of Article 311 of the-Constitution. They read as follows: