NITYANANDA BERA Vs. STATE OF WEST BENGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner is aggrieved by a communication dated August 3, 2012 issued by the Commissioner of School Education, West Bengal, by which the District Inspector of Schools (S.E.), Purba Medinipur, had been instructed that the petitioner should not receive any salary between August 1, 2005 to December 14, 2011 as the petitioner had not rendered his duty during the said period, due to the dispute in his date of birth as recorded in his service book with further instruction that the said period should be treated as leave without pay.

(2.) The facts of the case are that the petitioner a group D staff in Deriachak Sri Aurobindo Vidyamath (hereinafter referred to as the said school) moved a writ petition before this Hon'ble Court for correction of his date of birth in his service book as also in the records of the said school where he was working. He prayed that the date as per his higher secondary examination certificate and his own school records should be incorporated in his service book. The writ petition was registered as W.P. No.4840 (W) of 2004. The said writ petition was dismissed with cost. Against the order of dismissal dated May 14, 2004 passed in W.P. No.4840 (W) of 2004, an appeal was preferred which was registered as MAT No.2188 of 2004. The said appeal and connected applications being CAN 1575/2005 and CAN 4972/2005 were disposed of on July 11, 2005 with liberty to file a civil suit.

(3.) The facts pleaded in this writ petition are that the petitioner filed a civil suit being T.S. No.68/2005 before the learned Civil Judge (Junior Division), 1st Court, Tamluk against the respondents Nos.1, 3, 4 and 5 and the Secretary of the School praying for correction of his date of birth and date of joining in the service book and records of the said school. The petitioner joined the said school on April 1, 1977 but in the service approval memo of the petitioner's appointment as a group 'D' employee in the said school the date of joining was wrongly recorded as January 1, 1964. The date of birth of the petitioner was also wrongly recorded in the records of the said school as well as in the service book as August 1, 1945 instead of September 11, 1952. On July 25, 2005 an ad interim order of injunction was passed by the civil court restraining the defendants from giving any effect to the service approval memo dated November 29, 1983 issued by the D.I. of Schools (S.E.), Purba Medinipur, and further restraining the defendants from giving effect to the superannuation notice requiring the petitioner to retire from service with effect from August 1, 2005. On the basis of the ad-interim order, the petitioner claimed to be in service on August 1, 2005, but the petitioner was not permitted to join the school. He was restrained by the then headmaster of the school from signing the attendance register and was threatened with dire consequences. Finding no other alternative, the petitioner lodged Kolaghat P.S. G.D.E. No.33 dated August 1, 2005 and Kolaghat P.S. G.D.E. No.180 dated August 4, 2005. The ad interim order was made absolute by order dated January 20, 2006 and the application for temporary injunction was allowed.