MAGANLAL SUKHDEVBHAI KATARA Vs. COMMISSIONER OF POLICE AHMEDABAD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner is a Police Constable working in the Control Room of the Office of Commissioner of Police at Ahmedabad. By this application he moves this Court for appropriate writs orders and directions to enjoin the Commissioner of Police to permit him to resume his duties. The circumstances under which the petitioner has been constrained to move this Court are as under.

(2.) The petitioner was required to proceed on sick leave with effect from 3/10/1975 as he was suffering from tuberculosis. He submitted medical certificate of the Civil Surgeon Ahmedabad in support of his application for leave from 8-10-75 to 24/06/1977 and the salary for that period was paid to him in 1978. The petitioner was required to be treated for his ailment and since he was not paid salary he was required to go to his home town and take proper treatment and rest. After he recovered and recouped in order to resume his duties he was required to produce the fitness certificate under rule 641 of the Bombay Civil Services Rules which he obtained from the Civil Surgeon on 14/04/1982 who recommended that the petitioner should be assigned lighter duty for a period of one month from the date of the certificate. The petitioner reported himself for duty with the above certificate in the city Police Control Room of the respondents office but he was not allowed to resume his duties and was asked to appear before the Medical Board Civil Hospital Ahmedabad vide letter issued by the Dy. Commissioner of Police Headquarters dated 17/04/1982 It is in these circumstances that the petitioner has moved this Court.

(3.) This Court has issued the rule and made it returnable today. I am of the opinion that this petition should be allowed obviously for the following reasons. Rule 641 of the Bombay Civil Services Rules enjoins that the Government servant who has proceeded on medical leave would not be entitled to return and resume his duties until he produces Medical certificate of fitness in the prescribed from issued by a Medical Committee Civil Surgeon or a Registered Medical Practitioner. If the Government servant concerned is a Gazetted Officer it is obligatory for him to obtain a medical certificate from the Medical Committee as prescribed in rule 641 unless it is dispensed with in cases specified therein. In those excepted cases the certificate may be obtained from a commissioned Medical Officer or a Medical Officer incharge of a civil station. If a Government servant is not a Gazetted Officer the head of the department of such servant in his discretion may allow him to resume the duties by accepting the certificate of a registered medical practitioner. The rule is clear enough and the respondent was not entitled to insist that the petitioner must produce a certificate from the medical committee. Mr. Trivedi learned Assistant Government Pleader appearing on behalf of the respondent urged that under rule 674 the authority competent to sanction leave may in his discretion secure a second medical opinion and it is under this rule that the respondent has insisted for a certificate from the Medical Committee. I am afraid the whole contention is misconceived. Rule 674 deals with a situation when an application for leave on medical certificate is made by a non-gazetted servant. In other words it pertains to a situation before a Government servant proceeds on leave. Even in such a case the authority competent to sanction leave can in order to assure himself about the genuineness of the cause of the leave insist for a second medical opinion by requesting the concerned servant to get him medically examined by a Civil Surgeon or District Medical Officer. The competent authority cannot insist even in such cases where the leave is sought on medical ground that the concerned employee should get himself examined by a Medical Committee. In any case rule 674 has no application in the present case.