ARIVENDLA NAGENDRA BABU Vs. STATE OF TELANGANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner, who is working as a Technical Assistant with the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, challenges the correctness and validity of the orders passed by the Project Director, Nalgonda District, on 23 -01 -2015, temporarily putting him off from contract services as such.

(2.) SRI M. Venkat Ram Reddy, learned counsel for the petitioner, would urge that the scheme, which has been framed by the State Government, provided for the disciplinary control as well. Para 6 of the Disciplinary Rules for FTEs of SRDS (2012) dealt with the terms and conditions for conducting Disciplinary cases and Appeals. Para 6.1 deals with involvement in criminal cases and convictions, which provision enabled the employee to be kept under suspension, whereas para 6.2 deals with the procedure for conducting and concluding the disciplinary cases. Thus, excepting in a case where an employee is involved in criminal cases and he is also convicted, the question of placing him under suspension would not arise. The learned counsel would further urge that even assuming that there is an inherent power in the appointing authority of an employee to also place him under suspension pending any inquiry, since the inquiry is required to be concluded under the Disciplinary Rules, in particular para 6.2 (vi), within thirty days from the date of detection of the irregularity, the period of suspension cannot prolong beyond the said thirty days limit and after expiry of the thirty days limit, the suspension can be treated to have lapsed. It was also further urged by the learned counsel for the petitioner that the petitioner and his likes are placed under suspension very routinely and thereafterwards their existence and their rights are completely forgotten. No subsistence allowance is tendered. Therefore, the entire exercise gets vitiated.

(3.) PER contra, Sri M.S.R. Chandra Murthy, learned Standing Counsel for the 4th respondent, would urge that the petitioner and others like him are engaged on a contractual basis. They stand on a different footing from those, who have been engaged on a regular basis and further, the irregularities committed have got to be investigated first very carefully and the necessary material has got to be gathered before any penalty is imposed for the proven misconduct. Therefore, unless the employee is kept under suspension, his access to the records and men cannot be prevented.