ROOPSINGH DEVISINGH Vs. SANCHALAK PANCHAYAT AND SAMAJ SEWA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner, who had been temporarily appointed as the Secretary, Kendra panchayat, Makdone, in District Ujjain, was removed from service by the order of the Director, Panchayat and Samaj Sewa, dated 19-10-1957. He addressed the government what he describes as "a revision application" and got on 20-2-1959, that is, about a year and a half after the removal, an unfavourable reply, after it, he took some months to obtain certain certified copies and ultimately filed this petition in October 1959. His allegation is that the authority that dismissed him is not the authority that appointed him and, further that it is subordinate; the requirements of Article 311 of the Constitution have not been fulfilled; and again, that in regard to some of the grounds of removal, he had not been called upon or provided an Opportunity to explain or show cause. The questions for decision are, firstly, as a preliminary point, whether a delay of about sixteen months spent in seeking relief in a manner admittedly not provided by statute or rules, should be condoned by this Court; secondly, whether an employee of a local authority--though appointed by Government--is in the civil service of the State and is as such, entitled to the benefit of the procedure laid down in Article 311; thirdly, whether a change of name of the appointing authority will affect the validity of the order of removal of the employee, if it had not been formally incorporated by amendment in the appropriate rules; finally, whether the mention of certain additional allegations in the body of an order can be presumed to have coloured the operative portion if it expressly acts out only one of them.

(2.) THE facts are the following: The petitioner, who had been appointed temporarily on 20-7-1953 by the Development Commissioner, Madhya Bharat, got into certain difficuities in April 1956. Certain grants had been, made to different kendra punchayats for construction work (nirman karya) and the Minister in-charge of panchayats had called a meeting at Ujjain on the 5th April of the sarpanchas of the Panchayats to assess the progress of the work done by different panchayats in that district. There was also a direction that the secretaries of the panchayats should send in time a complete statement of how the money had been spent and what had been done. In a properly run institution, the preparation of this statement would have been the simplest affair. However, it happened, at that meeting no statement was brought from Makdone panchayat; the authorities concerned were kept in the dark about the real state of affairs in this regard in that panchayat. Normally, both--the sarpanch and the secretary--, would have been blamed; but we are here concerned with the action taken not against the former, but only against the latter.

(3.) THE matter of the statement was taken seriously by the higher authorities. The assistant Director Rural Uplift of the Ujjain District, called upon the petitioner to explain the default and to show cause why he should not be removed from service. The latter urged that he had been on leave for a few days till the 30th of March; on that date, he was going to prepare the statement concerned, but the sarpancha had ordered him to go to a place called Karedi where a mela was to be held under the supervision of the authorities of the kendra panehayat and the Minister was to visit that place as well. He left on that assignment and, therefore, was not in a position to prepare the statement. He attached to this cause, the written order by the sarpancha, dated 30th March, 1956, directing him to go to Karedi mela and stating (which was apparently superfluous) that in view of the urgency of the karedi visit, the statement about the progress of construction work could not be prepared. It is unnecessary in this proceeding to consider the extent of the sarpancha's complicity in this scheme of keeping the authorities in the dark in regard to the construction work. On seeing this cause, the Deputy Inspector (Up-Nirikshak) for rural Uplift, pointed out to the petitioner that at all events he had time to prepare the statement before leaving for Karedi, and asked him to explain this and show cause against the action for his disregarding the orders. The petitioner again replied in triplicate as directed, asserting that there was really no time to prepare the statement. Here, the petitioner lets himself go and questions the Up-Nirikshak why he was not making use of the statement that had already been sent to him on a previous occasion, and why he thought there was some mystery in this matter, which he was anxious to expose: