S ALAMELU Vs. SUPERINTENDING ENGINEER SOUTH ARCOT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner in W. P. No. 11462 of 1985 is the appellant in this writ appeal. The respondent in the writ petition is the respondent in this writ appeal. We are referring to the parties as per their nomenclature in the writ petition for the sake of convenience. The petitioner was initially appointed by the Superintending Engineer, South Arcot Electricity System (South), Villupuram, to the post of Junior Assistant in the year 1970. Her service were regularised and subsequently in 1980 she was promoted as an Assistant. There is no dispute that the petitioner is a physically handicapped person in that she does not have her left forearm. She claims that she could not secure life partner on account of her physical handicap and sympathy flowed from her brother-in-law, namely, her younger sister's husband and he took her in marriage even though his marriage with the petitioner's younger sister was subsisting. This happened in the year 1973. On 1st July, 1985 a charge memorandum was issued to the petitioner putting forth the following charge :

(2.) THE petitioner came to this Court impeaching this charge memorandum by way of the writ petition. Three contentions were put forth before the learned single Judge, who heard and disposed of the writ petition. The first contention in substance was that there are Certified Standing Orders under the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 20 of 1946, hereinafter referred to as the Act, and they do not set out any such misconduct and the Regulations cannot he invoked as done in the charge memorandum. The second contention was that if there is a conflict between the Certified Standing Orders and the Regulations, the former alone must prevail. The third contention was that if it is a question of obtaining a permission, that could be accorded even now. The learned single Judge did not countenance any of the three contentions, and as a result, dismissed the writ petition. This has obliged the petitioner to prefer this writ appeal.

(3.) MR. K. Chandru, learned counsel for the petitioner, would primarily contend that to the parties the Act applies and pursuant to the provisions of the Act, Standing Orders got formulated and certified and they have settled and must be deemed to have settled all matters that are required to be settled by the provisions of the Act, which take in also acts and omissions, which would constitute misconduct; and a violation of the prescription of the Regulation as complained of and adumbrated in the charge memorandum is not one such misconduct and hence it is not permissible to have recourse to the Regulation to penalise the petitioner. In answer, Mr. K. P. H. Thulasiraman learned counsel for the respondent, would submit that when there is a Regulation, prohibiting the contracting of another marriage, as happened in the present case, without the prior permission, there could be disciplinary action treating such violation as a misconduct, and the absence of enumeration of that misconduct in the Certified Standing Orders would not abrogate such powers.