P. RAGHAVA REDDY Vs. TELUGU ACADEMI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a writ petition that calls into question the distinction between suspension of sentence and that of conviction, and also whether dismissal from service is an invariable course of action for the employer in the event of the employee suffering conviction in a court of law.

(2.) The petitioner joined as a Junior Assistant in the Telugu Academy Regional Centre, Tirupathi on 26.03.1993 and later got promoted as Senior Assistant in June, 2005. In course of time, the petitioner was transferred on administrative grounds to Telugu Academy Regional Centre, Visakhapatnam. When he was working in Visakhapatnam, on 18.02.2008 the then Director of the respondent Academy placed the petitioner under suspension on the allegation of certain financial irregularities said to have been committed by the petitioner when he was working in the Regional Centre at Tirupathi.

(3.) The record reveals that the petitioner filed W.P.No.3872 of 2008 assailing the said suspension and eventually the writ petition was allowed on 31.10.2008. When the respondent Academy refused to reinstate the petitioner into service despite the order of this Court, the petitioner filed C.C.No.293 of 2009 arraigning the authority eo nominee. Eventually, on the pain of contempt, the petitioner is said to have been reinstated on 13.07.2009. In the interregnum, though the respondent Academy assailed the orders dated 31.10.2008 in intra-court appeal in W.A.No.1596 of 2009, a learned Division Bench of this Court dismissed the said Appeal through its judgment dated 13.11.2009.