STATE OF M P Vs. GAJRASINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal by the State and three of its officers, the defendants in a suit before the Third Additional District Judge Indore, brought by the respondent a retrenched employee of the Madhya Bharat Government in the Police Department, for a declaration that the order retrenching him from service was really an order of punishment and was invalid and illegal for repugnance to Article 311 of the Constitution, and further claiming that he should be declared to be still in the service of the successor Government and to be entitled to the pay and privileges of that post. There was a claim for the arrear pay.

(2.) THE trial Court granted the decree against all the defendants making the declaration desired and decreeing against defendant No. 1, that is the State of Madhya Pradesh arrear pay from a date beginning three years immediately before the suit.

(3.) THE facts of the case are the following : THE plaintiff was appointed as long ago as 1934 as a police constable in the State of Gwalior. He was not qualified in the manner we understand and it is common ground that he was not at that time even a matriculate and had not since acquired that educational qualification a fact of great significance as will be seen presently. He rose up in service and by 1948 shortly before the merger of the Gwalior State in the United State of Madhya Bharat had risen to the rank of Sub-Inspector. From that time till certain happenings in 1952 he was in the list of the "provisionally absorbed servants" whose cases were being investigated in accordance with a set of rules described as "Retrenchment Terms" issued with notification of the 15th December 1948 as revised by the notification No. 180/VII/G/EM dated 9th July 1949. In brief this was a code according to which the large surplus of officers coming on from different States was to be disposed of in a manner least inconvenient to the individuals, and in all cases with some pension or gratuity calculated in accordance with the same rules.