GOKAK MUNICIPALITY Vs. RAJARAM SHRIDHAR KULKARNI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) WE are concerned in this second appeal with questions of some importance in connection with the conditions of service of Municipal employees and the right of the Municipality to discharge its employees.

(2.) THE plaintiff who is now the respondent was a school teacher in the service of the Gokak Municipality. He was appointed in 1920, apparently for one year in the first instance though the evidence as to this is not very clear. He was, however, allowed to continue in service until the year 1933. On April 29, 1933, there was a resolution of the School Committee to the effect that the plaintiff should be served with a notice to show cause why his services should not be dispensed with. THE reason for the resolution purported to be that he had not passed his B. T. (Bachelor of Teaching) and was not able to teach Kanarese. On April 30, the next day, there was a special general meeting of the Municipality at which it was resolved to give the plaintiff one month's notice and remove him from service. THE reasons for this resolution as stated in the minutes of the meeting were that the plaintiff had been directed to learn Kanarese in the year 1926 and had failed to do this and had, therefore, obtained increments of pay illegally, that his services were considered unnecessary inasmuch as many Kanarese knowing graduates were available and that it was in the interest of retrenchment that he should be removed from service. This special general meeting had been summoned by a notice dated April,25. THE plaintiff's case was not mentioned in the agenda, but item 9 of the agenda before the meeting was " Subjects to be taken up with the permission of the President." It appears that at the meeting the President gave permission for this matter to be discussed. A notice dispensing with the plaintiff's services was issued on May 3 and his services were dispensed with from June30.

(3.) IN this second appeal by the Municipality the first point that has been argued is that the plaintiff on the facts alleged and proved could have, no cause of action. Reliance was placed on a decision of the Allahabad High Court, Municipal Board of Shahjahmpur v. Sukha Singh [1937] All. 434. That was a rase in which the Secretary of a Municipality brought an action for a declaration that he had not been legally dismissed and that he was still the servant of the Board and entitled to continue drawing his salary. It was found that there had been certain irregularities in the proceedings because three of the members of the Board had not received timely notice of the meeting at which the services of the Secretary were dispensed with. It was held by the High Court that failure by the Municipality to observe strictly the rules and regulations in the conduct of its business did not afford the plaintiff a ground for maintaining his suit. This case, however, is no authority for the proposition that a breach of the rules would not have entitled the plaintiff to bring a suit for damages for wrongful dismissal. That point was expressly left open in the judgment (see p. 442 of the report). I may note that the Court also declined to make any pronouncement one way or the other on the question whether the plaintiff in that case, who was the Secretary of a Municipality, stood in the same position as a civil servant i.e. a servant of the Crown in respect of liability to be dismissed at pleasure with no right to maintain a suit for damages.