VARDHA RAO Vs. STATE OF KARNATAKA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS appeal arises out writ Petition No. 7948 of 1976, filed by the appellant challenging therein an order, dated 10 September 1976, annexed to the petition as exhibit B, whereby the Government had ordered the continuance of the suspension of the appellant for a further period of three months or till the date of the completion of the enquiry whichever event occurred first.

(2.) IN order to appreciate the import of the challenge to the impugned order, a few relevant facts which are not in dispute may be noticed. These can be stated thus : The appellant, a Labour Inspector, was suspended by the Labour Commissioner pending enquiry against him by his order, dated 2 July 1975. On the very day, the Labour Commissioner sanctioned subsistence allowance to the appellant by order exhibit D. The Government on being apprized by the Labour commissioner that the enquiry initiated by him against the appellant was unlikely to be completed before the expiry of six months from the date of suspension, it passed an order exhibit E on 28 January 1976, extending the period of suspension of the appellant for a further period of six months or till the date of completion of the enquiry whichever happened earlier and also sanctioned subsistence allowance by the very order at a scale mentioned therein. The Government on again being informed by the Labour Commissioner about the factum of the enquiry not being likely to be completed by the date of expiry of extended period of suspension, passed another order on 2 July 1976, (exhibit A), whereby it extended the period of suspension by another two months or till the date of completion of the enquiry whichever happened earlier, and, by the same order, also sanctioned payment of subsistence allowance at a scale mentioned therein. When the Government was again informed by the Labour Commissioner that the enquiry against the appellant was unlikely to be completed before the expiry of the extended period of suspension, it passed the impugned order, dated 10 September 1976, according sanction to the continuance of the period of suspension for a further period of three months or till the completion of the enquiry whichever event occurred first.

(3.) THE appellant challenged this latest order of the Government on the ground that it amounted to an order suspending him with retrospective effect from 1 September 1976. the date on which the operation of the order, dated 2 July 1976, came to an end. His contention did not find favour with the learned single Judge, who, relying on the ratio of a division Bench decision of this Court in subba Rao (M.) v. Assistant Commissioner [ (1963) 1 Mys. L. J. 434], held that the original order of suspension, dated 2 July 1975, continued to enure.