PONNAMMA Vs. REGIONAL DIRECTOR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner was appointed as a Lower Division Clerk in the first respondent-Corporation with effect from 4-4-1979. She was regularised in that post with effect from 29-10-1979. She was overaged at the time of her appointment, but that disqualification was overlooked on the basis of her statement that she belonged to a Scheduled Caste. Subsequently by Ext. P3 her service was terminated. No reason is stated in Ext. P3 apart from a reference to the temporary nature of her appointment. THE petitioner contends that her service was terminated because the respondents wrongly came to the conclusion that she had misled them by stating that she was a member of the. Scheduled Caste. THE allegation has not been denied. In fact it has been accepted by the respondents in the counter affidavit. THE case of the respondents, as disclosed in the counter affidavit, is that the petitioner could not have been a member of the Scheduled Caste as she was born of non-Hindu parents. This is what the respondents say:

(2.) THE sole reason for the termination of the petitioner's service is thus admitted to be that she supplied incorrect information about her caste because at the time of her birth her parents were not Hindus, for they had been converted to Christianity before she was born, and as such she could not by conversion to Hinduism claim to be a member of the Scheduled Caste. This was the fundamental assumption on the basis of which the respondents came to the conclusion that the petitioner misled them about her caste. This was an inference of law which was drawn by the respondents and which led to the termination of the petitioner's service. This inference, as seen from the decision of the Supreme Court in Guntur Medical College v. Mohan Rao ((1976) 1 S.C.W.R. 448), was founded on wrong understanding of the law. Referring to its decision in C.M. Arummugam v. S. Rajgopal (AIR. 1976 SC. 939), the Supreme Court stated:

(3.) THEREFORE the question is whether or not the petitioner on conversion to Hinduism was accepted by the members of the caste to which her parents and forefathers once belonged.