MAJOR R RAMESH Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner has challenged the order of the 1st respondent made in letter No. 15(12)/99/D (Med), dated 28.6.1999 and the order of the 2nd respondent made in letter No. 66797/PR&R/RR/98/DGMS-1A, dated 1.6.1998. By the said orders the respondents have rejected the request of the petitioner seeking for permission to his request for resignation. According to the petitioner, the petitioner was commissioned as an Officer in the Indian Army on 24.12.1988 and after his completion of intership in Military Hospital at Secunderabad, the petitioner underwent an advance course in pediatrics in Armed Forces Medical College at Pune from December, 1992 to December, 1995. After serving in various places, finally the petitioner was transferred to Military Hospital at Wellington, Nilgiris. Due to some personal problems like the ill-health of the father of the petitioner and his parents are living separately at Secunderabad with no one to look after them and their properties and the petitioner's father was undergoing treatment at Military Hospital, Secunderabad and conjugal disharmony between the petitioner and his wife due to separation as she was unwilling to accompany the petitioner to the places where the petitioner is transferred, he applied for resignation during February, 1998.

(2.) ON the basis of the said resignation letter, the petitioner and his wife were interviewed by his immediate superior officer who finally recommended and forwarded the application of resignation of the petitioner with remarks that the application was genuine and need sympathetic consideration. However, the 2nd respondent in his letter dated 1.6.1998 rejected the application of the petitioner for resignation as, "application dated 20.2.1998 in respect of the above named officer seeking premature retirement has been considered and rejected by the Competent Authority." Aggrieved by the above, the petitioner submitted a statutory complaint on 16.9.1998 to the 1st respondent who by his letter dated 28.6.1999 rejected the same on the ground that, "the grounds for seeking resignation are all routine in nature and the officer has also a service liability upto December, 2002."

(3.) A prayer for resignation has to be dealt with on different footing as the discretionary power vests in the authority taking decision on application for resignation is limited and circumscribed. In this case, the petitioner has given sufficient reasons in his application seeking for permission to resign and the said reasons cannot be rejected on the ground that the reasons are all routine in nature. Furthermore, even in the impugned order passed by the 2nd respondent, except saying that the Competent Authority has rejected, no reason is adduced in the said order.