JOSEPH D KUNNAPPALLI Vs. SUPERINTENDENT OF POST OFFICES

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE appellant in this writ appeal was an extra-departmental messenger in the Posts and Telegraphs Department at the Kanjirappalli. He was a member of the All India Postal Employees Union, postmen, class IV, and the organizing secretary for Kottayam Postal Division. In his capacity as an office-bearer of the union, he used to make representations to the Government for securing Improved living conditions for himself and his fellow-workers by raising their pay-scales. His efforts did not product the desired result. So he thought of publishing an article in the newspaper in furtherance of his cause. Accordingly, he published a letter in the editor's column of Malaya in Manorama dated 11 February 1955 under the option [words in Malayalam] in which he draw a plot are of the extradepartmental staff attached to the Posts and Telegraphs offices as persons undergoing abject misery on account of the appallingly low pay drawn by them. It was also stated by him in the article that this principle "same pay for the same or identical job "underlying the Constitution of India, appears to have been ignored in the case of these ill-fated extra-departmental employees. Ha also stated that among them there are even graduates and it is a naked truth that the extra-departmental employees have been working on this low pay for 10 to 15 years now. Even though, under the Das Commission report, the dearnes allowance of the Central Government employees has been raised, the said benefit was not extended to the extra departmental employees of the Postal Department. Finally, he requested the Central Government to take immediate steps to alleviate their distress. The article came to the notice of the department and they took disciplinary action against him under Rule 20 of the Posts and Telegraphs Extra-Departmental Agents (Conduct and Service) Rules, 1964, and the appellant after an enquiry was dismissed from service. Against the order of dismissal, he appealed to the Superintendent of Post Offiices, Kottayam, with no better result. Challenging the order, he filed before this Court Original Petition No. 2446 of 1965 on the ground that the order is ultra vires, invalid and unconstitutional. He also stated that the order is violatlve of natural justice in that he was not allowed a personal hearing before the impugned orders ware passed. The order according to him is also violative of Article 311 (2) of the Constitution in that he was no. given an opportunity to show cause against dismissal before the punishment was imposed on him. The learned single Judge who heard the petition dismissed it making the following observation: I am not prepared to say that the interpretation placed by the authorities concerned is so patently erroneous to justify interference by this Court.

(2.) FROM the impugned order passed by the departmental authority, it appears that the particular rule under which action was taken against the petitioner is Rule 20 (1) of the Posts and Telegraphs Extra Departmental Agents (Conduct and Service) Rules, 1964. The rule runs:

(3.) IN Ex. P. 5, the order of the sub-post-master, dismissing the petitioner from service which was eventually confirmed by the appellate authority, it is observed: