LESLIE BIVEIRA Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioner is the manager of a corporate educational agency. The short issue is whether the Director of Public Instructions, hereinafter referred to as the 'Director', has acted in excess of authority under R.7 in Chapter III of the Kerala Education Rules, 1959, for short, the 'KER', in issuing the impugned Ext. P7 placing the petitioner under temporary disqualification from managership. That order has been issued without hearing the petitioner. It is stated in Ext. P7 that the said order will be reviewed after finalisation of the vigilance case referred to therein.

(2.) As required by this Court, the learned Government Pleader has placed a copy of the letter referred to at Sl. No. 2 in Ext. P7. That letter discloses that the Enquiry Commissioner and Special Judge, Thrissur forwarded a complaint for enquiry which resulted in a report being submitted to that Court on 08/03/2007, which, in turn, directed on 12/03/2007, to register a case against the writ petitioner and another and to investigate the same. Accordingly, a case VC 3/2007/Ekm. has been registered under the different provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 on 15/03/2007. The writ petitioner is the second accused in that case. It is also stated in that letter that if the accused persons are allowed to continue in their official position, they may interfere with the investigation by inducing witnesses and destroying records and therefore they may be suspended from service at the earliest.

(3.) The legal issues raised by the petitioner are, firstly, that the authority under R.7 of Chapter III KER to disqualify a manager does not include the power to do so without a pre decisional hearing and, secondly, that such power does not include the authority to pass an order of suspension of the managership temporarily and no suspension order, as understood in the realm of service law, could be passed against the manager, in terms of the KER or the Kerala Education Act, 1958, hereinafter referred to as the 'Act', for short.