R SUGUMAR Vs. COLLECTOR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner was working as Village Assistant in the third respondent-Panchayat. He committed certain gross irregularities and was suspended. The suspension was challenged in W.P.No.9967 of 2008 and the writ petition came to be dismissed on 12.7.2010 holding as follows:-

(2.) THE plea taken by the petitioner is that the Panchayat President had abdicated his power and issued the impugned proceedings solely on the basis of the directions issued by the District Collector and the Block Development Officer. The impugned proceeding is not a notice to show cause, as the language of the notice clearly speaks of the directions given by the Collector and the Block Development Officer to remove the petitioner and appoint some other person in his place. In effect, what has been issued is not a show cause notice, but a clear direction to the third respondent to remove the petitioner and appoint another person. Hence, the entire proceedings are farce, violative of principles of natural justice, besides being arbitrary and capricious. In support of his submission, the learned counsel for the petitioner relied upon a judgment of the Apex Court in Siemens Ltd., v. State of Maharashtra and others, (2006) 12 SCC 33 for the following proposition:- "9. Although ordinarily a writ court may not exercise its discretionary jurisdiction in entertaining a writ petition questioning a notice to show cause unless the same inter alia appears to have been without jurisdiction as has been held by this Court in some decisions including State of U.P. v. Brahm Datt Sharma, (1987) 2 SCC 179, Special Director v. Mohd. Ghulam Ghouse, (2004) 3 SCC 440 and Union of India v. Kunisetty Satyanarayana, (2006) 12 SCC 28, but the question herein has to be considered from a different angle viz., when a notice is issued with premeditation, a writ petition would be maintainable. In such an event, even if the court directs the statutory authority to hear the matter afresh, ordinarily such hearing would not yield any fruitful purpose. (See K.I.Shephard v. Union of India, (1987) 4 SCC 431). It is evident in the instant case that the respondent has clearly made up its mind. It explicitly said so both in the counter affidavit as also in its purported show cause notice."