LEENA NANDI Vs. WEST BENGAL BOARD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The history behind this case is that the petitioner who was the Headmistress of Narkeldanga Girls' High School which is being represented by the Respondents No. 2 to 4, took leave on the ground ill-health and after the leave was continued up to the 26th August 1966, she made a further period of six weeks by the letter of that date which is at Annexure 'A' to the Petition (Page 31), attaching a Medical Certificate of a competent Medical Officer which is at page 32. There was nothing to question the authenticity of the certificate or its weight but the Ad-Hoc Committee of the School, by their letter at page 33, rejected the further leave prayed for on the ground that she was not entitled to further leave according to the rules. If the Medical Certificate had been taken proper cognizance of, the petitioner was entitled to be considered to remain unfit till the 10th October 1966, and by the fit Certificate granted by the same Medical Officer dated the 29th October 1966 (Page 39), the Petitioner can be said to have been fit to resume her duties on the 29th October, 1966. These dates fell during the period when the school was closed for the Puja Vacation. Notwithstanding refusal of further leave asked for by Annexure 'A', the Petitioner was unable to join and she proposed to join after the reopening of the Puja Vacation on the 31st October 1966 by her letter at Annexure 'F', dated the 17th October 1966, Instead of allowing the Petitioner to rejoin on the reopening of the vacation, the Secretary of the School wrote a letter at Exhibit 'G' dated the 27th October 1966, by which he said that since she did not join on the expiry of the leave granted by the school and on the refusal to grant further leave. I cannot allow you to join the school in any capacity whatsoever on reopening of school after the Puja Vacation. The substance of this letter issued by Secretary was the petitioner could not be allowed to resume her duties since she did not join immediately after the expiry of the leave which was formally granted by the School. There has been some controversy as to whether the Secretary had the power to do this but in the counter-affidavit of the school, it was stated that the Ad-Hoc Committee had subsequently ratified it. Whether that would be valid or not it is not necessary to go into because the matter has gone upto the Board of Secondary Education in appeal against Order of the Secretary at Exhibit 'G' and it has been fought on the footing that it is an Order of the School Committee against which appeal lies to the Appeal Committee of the Board under Section 22(3) of the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education Act 1963.

(2.) The petitioner has come to Court being aggrieved with the order of the Appeal Committee which is at Exhibit 'K' to the Petition. The substantive relief prayed for is that the decision of the Appeal Committee should be quashed on the ground that the order passed by the Appeal Committee is not in consonance with and does not follow from the judgment which was recorded rather elaborately by the Appeal Committee. Before we enter into the merits of this case, it is necessary to dispose of the preliminary point which has been raised on behalf of the Ad-Hoc Committee of the School by Mr. Bose, that this rule is not maintainable in the absence of the Appeal Committee on the record. His argument in short was that the composition of the Appeal Committee, as given under Section 22(1) of the Act shows that there are certain members of this Committee who did not appertain to the staff of the Board and that, accordingly, the Appeal Committee must be held to be an entity separate from the Board. It is not possible to accede to this contention inasmuch as this Act, as its title goes, was enacted with the object of setting up statutory corporation, namely, the Board of Secondary Education to look after the matter, relating to Secondary Education in this State. By Section 3(2) of the Act this Board, which is a body corporate, is declared to be a person to sue and to be sued in its own name. There is no other statutory corporation under this Act and the Appeal Committee can not be said to be a legal person. Apart from that, Section 18 of the Act makes it clear that it is the Board which establishes and constituted the different Committees as specified in that Section. The Committee so formed are limbs of the Board and the decision of the Appeal Committee must be taken to be a decision of the Board itself. Be that as it may, it is not possible to contend that when the Board itself has been sued in terms of Section 3(2), a legal proceeding shall fail because of the absence of the individual members of the Appeal Committee. In a proceeding against the Board, the law will presume the presence on record of all the organs of the Board as constituted under the statute. This preliminary objection, accordingly, must be rejected.

(3.) It was further argued that because the Appeal Committee was a Tribunal from which the present proceeding for a Writ of Certiorari has been brought the proceeding cannot be maintained in the absence of the Tribunal, as held by the Supreme Court (1) Udit Narayan's case reported in A.I.R. 1963, S.C. 786. This breach of the argument has no independent footing once we have held that it is the Board which represents the Appeal Committee at law.