VEERVUNNI MOOPPAN Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner, who had been a Range Officer in the former Travancore-Cochin State service, has filed this petition under Art.226 of the Constitution, to set aside the order Ext. P1, passed by the respondent, the State of Kerala, on July 4, 1958, reducing him in rank and barring his promotion for a period of two years. He had been ordered to be punished on the same allegations against him by an earlier order Ext. P2, passed by the Government of Travancore-Cochin; but at the hearing of Original Petition 310 of 1956, which had been preferred by him to this court to quash Ext. P2, counsel for the contending parties agreed, that the case against the petitioner might be examined by the Government after consulting the Public Service Commission and that the petitioner might move again under Art.226, should the need arise; the contentions raised were left undecided. Now that the second order also has gone against the petitioner, he has filed this petition.

(2.) Having received complaints against the petitioner, the Government of Travancore-Cochin ordered on February 18, 1953, that the Chief Conservator of Forests may hold an enquiry against him and report to the Government; he held an enquiry and reported to the Government by Ext. P10 dated November 12, 1953, that the petitioner is guilty on some of the charges, but not on others including the charge of bribery. On considering Ext. P10, the Government ordered a fresh enquiry into the charges, to be held by the Second Member of the Board of Revenue, who reported by Ext. P16 on July 6, 1955, that the petitioner is guilty also of bribery. It was upon this report, that finally, Ext. P1 came to be passed.

(3.) Two contentions alone were pressed on behalf of the petitioner, firstly, that the second enquiry was vitiated by a failure to comply with the rules of natural justice, witnesses having been examined without notice to and in the absence of the petitioner, and secondly, that a second enquiry into the same subject matter is not contemplated by law and is therefore void and without jurisdiction. In my view, the petitioner must succeed on the first contention, but has to fail on the second. On the first, the petitioners complaint was, that he was not served with notice of that part of the enquiry which was held at Peermade, when about eleven witnesses were examined and he could not be present to cross examine them, and that he received notice of the enquiry held at Kottayam, only after the date of that enquiry. There is a controversy as to the truth of the latter part of the complaint, but there is justification for the former part, for, as seen from Ext. P16 itself, notice of the enquiry which was held at Peermade on May 25, 1955, though issued to the petitioner by registered post on May, 7, 1955, was returned unserved on May, 31, 1955. On this short ground, Ext. P1 has to be quashed and the learned Government Pleader had no further argument upon it. But counsel for both parties pressed me for a decision on the second contention of the petitioner, in order that, the further steps which may be taken, may be clarified.