UNION OF INDIA Vs. PADMANABHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) UNION of India/ ministry of Finance is the appellant in this appeal. The respondent, who is an i. P. S. Officer in the Kerala cadre, filed the Original Petition to quash Exts. P6, P7 and P5 orders and for a mandamus directing the appellant to sanction and pay the reward to him in accordance with the scale mentioned in the guidelines and to declare that he is entitled to the reward on the guidelines indicated in exts. P1 and P2. Ext. P1 is issued by the Department of Revenue, Ministry of finance, Government of India dated 30. 3. 1985 to all heads of departments under the Central Board of Excise and Customs in regard to grant of rewards to informers and government servants. Ext. P1 is again issued by the Government of india, Ministry of Finance on 13. 4. 1989 to all heads of departments under the central Board of Excise and Customs in regard to grant of rewards to the government servants and informers. Under Ext. P2, the Government have reviewed the existing policy, procedures and orders contained in Ext. P1. The above two orders were issued by the Government of India with a view to encourage detection of smuggling of gold. The guidelines provide for grant of reward to the informers and government servants. According to these guidelines, 20% of the estimated marked value of the contraband gold seized or Rs. 5,800/- per gold biscuit is the reward to be given to the government servants and another 20% to the informants.

(2.) IN the instant case, team of police officials of kerala Police headed by the respondent effected seizure of 900 contraband gold biscuits by their own efforts and information gathered by them in Calicut district on 24. 2. 1989. They also arrested the person involved in the smuggling. A case was also registered against the accused. While the investigation in the case was progressing, then Additional Collector of Customs, Cochin requested the respondent to handover the seized gold and the accused persons to the customs. The contraband seized and the accused were handed over to the Customs for further investigation. From the confession made by the accused persons, the Customs and DRI Officials effected a further seizure of 1600 gold biscuits from Cannanore District the next day. The respondent forwarded a list of names, who are eligible for the reward, explaining the role played by such one of them. The Director General of police as Head of Department of the Kerala Police also forwarded to the Collector of customs a reward role recommending full reward to the respondent, since he had recruited the informant, worked out the information and seized the contraband gold. According to the respondent, who was mainly responsible for the detection of contraband gold valued approximately at Rs. 3. 5 crores and exposed himself to the risk of attack by the smugglers. Since he was not considered for the reward, the respondent submitted Ext. P4 representation to the Chairman, Board of Revenue, New Delhi on 3. 6. 1989. By Ext. P5 dated 21. 8. 1989 the respondent was informed that as the board have not agreed to granting reward to their own officers above the rank of Assistant Collector, his request for grant of reward cannot be acceded to. Respondent sent another representation to the Secretary, Ministry of Finance in september 1989. To this, Ext. P6 reply was given declining to grant reward to the respondent for the very same reason mentioned in Ext. P5. Thereupon, the respondent appealed to the Union Finance Minister. By Ext. P7, the Respondent was informed that "as per existing reward policy, officers higher than the rank of the Assistant Collector of Customs and Central Excise and Officers of equivalent rank in other departments are not eligible for reward. " thereupon the respondent filed Ext. P8 review petition before the Prime minister of INdia highlighting his grievances in regard to grant of reward to him. However, according to the respondent, he has not received any reply to ext. P8 review petition. Thereafter, he approached this Court by filing O. P. 12775 of 1991.

(3.) AGGRIEVED by the above judgement, the respondent in the Original Petition, Union of India, has preferred the above Writ Appeal. We have perused the entire documents, pleadings and the file produced by the learned Central Government Standing Counsel for the appellant. We have heard mr. P. S. Biju, learned standing counsel for the appellant and Mr. N. N. Venkitachalam for the respondent.