ARATI CHOUDHURY Vs. STATE OF ODISHA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner, who was the applicant in O.A. No. 1552 of 1991 before the Odisha Administrative Tribunal, Bhubaneswar, has filed this writ petition challenging the order dtd. 4/5/2012 passed by the Tribunal in the said Original Application.

(2.) The fact leading to the approach this Court, in a nutshell, is that the petitioner, after passing her graduation, had registered her name with the employment exchange. An advertisement was floated by the Board of Revenue to fill up the posts of Junior Assistant. As the petitioner was fulfilling the eligibility criteria fixed in the advertisement, applied for the said recruitment and was allotted with Roll Number-1100874. Name of the petitioner was sponsored by opposite party no.3 to the Deputy Director Marketing and Ex-Officio Under Secretary to Government, Industries Department on 9/8/1991 for being appointed as a Junior Assistant, pursuant to the requisition made by opposite party No.2, and it was further pointed out that the order of appointment may be issued in favour of the petitioner as per the address given. Accordingly, on 22/8/1991, the petitioner was issued with an order of appointment as Junior Assistant in the establishment of opposite party no.2 in the scale of pay of Rs.950.001500/- with usual DA as admissible from time to time. Pursuant to the said order of appointment, the petitioner joined on 26/8/1991. While the petitioner was discharging her duties, opposite party no.4 wrote a letter on 9/10/1991 to opposite party no.2 in pointing out that the name of the petitioner was erroneously sponsored for the post of Junior Assistant and in the said letter a request was made to terminate the services of the petitioner as per the terms and conditions of her appointment and on receipt of the confirmation about the termination of the services of the petitioner, steps would be taken to sponsor suitable candidate.

(3.) Mr. S.K. Dash, learned counsel appearing for the petitioner vehemently contended that though this Court, vide order dtd. 13/1/2010, while disposing of OJC No. 4220 of 1999, directed the opposite party-authorities to produce the relevant files and took note of the earlier order passed by it in O.A. No. 1603 of 1991 (filed by Pradeep Kumar Nayak), who stands on the same footing as that of the petitioner, as he challenged the order of termination passed at the behest of opposite party no.4, who directed the appointing authority to terminate his service as his name was erroneously sponsored, but the same was not taken into consideration by the Tribunal, while passing the order impugned. Therefore, the order passed by the Tribunal in O.A. No. 1603 of 1991 (filed by Pradeep Kumar Nayak) has got a precedenctiary value and has to be applied to the present case. It has been further contended that the Tribunal relied upon the judgment of the apex Court in the case of Regional Manager, Central Bank of India v. Madhulika Guruprasad Dahir, (2009) 1 SCC (L&S) and in the case of Arunima Baruah v. Union of India, AISLJ-2008 (1) SC 80 and Indian Bank v. Satyam Fibers, AIR 1996 SC 2590 to come to a finding that the petitioner obtained the appointment order fraudulently, but those decisions cannot have any application to the present case and those cases are distinguishable to the present facts of the case itself. He further contended that the termination having been done without following the principle of natural justice, the same cannot be sustained. Without appreciating the same, the Tribunal dismissed the Original Application which is the outcome of non-application of mind. According to him, the applicant in O.A. No. 8891 of 2012, i.e., Jagannath Satapathy had also approached this Court challenging the very common order dtd. 4/5/2012 passed by the Tribunal by filing W.P.(C) No. 8891 of 2012. The said writ petition was disposed of, vide order dtd. 23/2/2022, by observing that 'In view of the above submission, since the petitioner has already retired from service on attaining the age of superannuation and till then he was discharging his duty on being protected by the interim orders passed by the tribunal as well as by this Court, nothing remains to be adjudicated as against him. Thus, this Court, without expressing any opinion with regard to the legality and propriety of the order passed by the tribunal, disposes of the writ petition directing the opposite parties to extend the benefits, as due and admissible to the petitioner, after his retirement. To substantiate his contention, reliance has been placed on the cases of Vikas Pratap Singh v. State of Chhattisgarh, (2013) 14 SCC 494 and Anmol Kumar Tiwari v State of Jharkhand, (2021) 5 SCC 424.