WAMAN KARPE Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE applicant, who is an Excise Officer, has been reduced in rank by order of the Commissioner, Customs and Excise, Mudhya Bharat dated 10-9-1953 alter inquiry and the usual proceedings and notices. Alter filing his appeals and revisions to the Government, the applicant has moved this Court for an order in the nature of a writ directing the Government to restore him to the rank and pay that he held originally and make good the reduction in salary consequent on the order of reduction in rank. The grounds are apparently multiludious and the arguments have been very lengthy. However, they can be divided into three headings viz:-

(2.) IT would be convenient to take up the headings one by one. (i) This ground is, as it were, the sheet anchor of the applicant's case. He was appointed on 3-11-1930 as Head-Bhatkar in the Gwalior distillery by Trade Member of the erstwhile Gwalior Government. Even alter merger and the creation of the State of Madhya Bharat he continued. He asserts that the preparation of a gradation list, its circulation for objections, if any, and the final approval of the gradation list all amounted to a fresh appointment by the Government of Madhya bharat, and, therefore, the entire proceedings are void, the commissioner of Customs and Excise being an officer subordinate to the madhya Bharat Government. He has further relied upon the rulings of the Madhya Bharat High Court, namely, the cases of Abdif Mohd. Khan v. M. B. State, AIR 1956 Mad B 259 and of Ram chandra Gopal Kao v. D. I G Police, AIR 1957 Madh-Pra 126. This aspect of the matter has been discussed at length by us in Raghunath Singh v. State, (Civil misc. Case No. 63 of "1936, D/-18-8-1958): (AIR 1959 Madh-Pra 43) and we have held that the decision in these two earlier cases were really on the special grounds mentioned in those judgments and that the preparation of a gradation list, is not reappointment in its service, by Madhya Bharat Government. On the same principles, I find here also that the erstwhile Gwalior Government has long ceased to exist, and there is no statutory rule or provision equating it to any existing authority; so I cannot hold that the Commissioner of Customs and Excise is subordinate to the Government of the erstwhile Gwalior State. This disposes of the main ground under heading (i ).

(3.) GROUND, (ii) above: the petitioner has urged that the inquiry was not conducted in accordance with the directions given in the statutory rules. Two breaches have been alleged. Firstly, that he was asked to cross-examine before the charges were framed, whereas he should have been asked to cross-examine after it, and, secondly, that along with the punishment notice he was not given a copy p the inquiry report and was only told that the inquiring officer had found him guilty of the particular charges,