BABULAL MEKULAL Vs. PRINCIPAL GOVT ENGINEERING COLLEGE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS petition under Article 226 of the Constitution is directed against an order of the Principal, Government Engineering College, Jabalpur (respondent No. 1) dated 19 February 1959 by which the services of the petitioner were dispensed with from the next day.

(2.) BY an order No. 7530 dated 27 August 1958, the petitioner, who was already working as a Farrash, in the Government Engineering College, Jabalpur, was appointed temporarily until further orders as Laboratory Attendant in the Applied Physics Department of the College. On 19 February 1959, his services were dispensed with by the following order:

(3.) THE petitioner's case is that, by the order dated 19 February 1959, he was found utterly negligent in the discharge of his duties with the result that there were repeated thefts of instruments from the laboratories in his charge, that he was treated as a person of suspicious character associating with previous convicts and that, under the circumstances, he was considered to be not a desirable person "to be continued in the Government service". The petitioner further averred that his salary for the months of January and February 1959 was forfeited to make good a part of the loss caused to Government on account of theft of instruments. According to the petitioner, he was punished by imposing upon him the penalty of removal from service coupled with forfeiture of salary without giving to him a reasonable or any opportunity to defend himself as contemplated by Clause (2) of Article 311 of the Constitution. That being so, the order is liable to be quashed.