JAGDISH PRASAD TRIPATHI Vs. STATE OF UTTAR PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These are thirty-one petitions which raise common question of law and fact. All these petitions can conveniently be disposed of by a common judgment.

(2.) The petitioners were employed in the U. P. Food and Civil Supplies Department as temporary Government Servants. The terms and conditions of their services were regulated by the Notification dated 30th January, 1953. The petitioners in Writ Petitions Nos. 4777, 4540 and 4502 of 1974 were appointed as peons while the petitioners in rest of the petitions were appointed to the post of Supply Inspectors, all in temporary capacity. The services of these petitioners have been terminated by different orders passed by the District Magistrate of the district concerned where they were posted in July, 1974. The validity of the termination orders have been challenged in all these petitions.

(3.) Sri S. C. Khare, learned counsel for the petitioners, urged that clause 2 of the notification dated 30th January, 1953, required that notice of termination must recite that the services of the Government servant were to terminate after one month or, in the alternative, it must state that the period of one months notice was being substituted by payment of one month's salary. In the absence of recital of one month's notice or that of one month's salary, the notice terminating the services of temporary Government servant could not be in accordance with the provisions contained in the aforesaid notification and the same would be illegal and void. It is true that in some of the petitions neither the period of notice is mentioned nor the offer of pay of one month to the petitioners has been recited in the impugned termination orders. The orders, on the other hand, recite that the services of the petitioners are terminated forthwith in terms of the notification dated 30-1-1953 applicable to temporary Government servants.