SANTU RAM Vs. STATE OF HARYANA AND OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This petition under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India challenges the petitioner's removal by the Government of Haryana under orders of Shri Khurshid Ahmed, Minister for Local Self Government, Haryana (Respondent No. 2) from the office of Vice-President, Municipal Committee, Tohana (hereinafter referred to as the Committee) and from the membership of the Committee under Sections 22 and 16 of the Punjab Municipal Act (hereinafter referred to as the Act).

(2.) The facts giving rise to this petition are these. A meeting of the Committee was scheduled to be held at 4 p.m. on the 14th of October, 1968. That meeting was adjourned for want of quorum by the petitioner who was served by the Secretary to Government Haryana, Local Government Department, with a notice dated the 29th of January, 1969, requiring him to show cause as to why he should not be removed from the Vice-Presidentship and the membership of the Committee on the ground that he had adjourned the meeting fraudulently before 4.00 p.m. on the said date when he allegedly found that items on the agenda affixed for the meeting were likely to be decided in a manner which was not to his liking, which conduct on his part amounted according to the allegations made in the notice, to flagrant abuse of his position as a Vice-President and member of the Committee within the meaning of the said two sections. The petitioner submitted his explanation dated the 15th of February, 1969 (Annexure 'B' in reply to the notice, to the said Secretary, whereafter an enquiry into the charge against the petitioner was held by Shri K.G. Verma, Sub-Divisional Officer (Civil), Hissar respondent No. 5) who submitted his report through the Deputy Commissioner of the District to the Government. That report was made the subject-matter of an office note dated the 10th of July, 1969, in the Government Secretariat and in that note it was proposed that the petitioner be removed from office as recommended by respondent No. 5. The proposal was approved by the Secretary concerned on the 18th of July, 1969, who forwarded the same to Shri Khurshid Ahmed, Minister for Local Self Government, Haryana (respondent No. 2) whose order thereon, which was made on the 23rd of July, 1969, runs thus :-

(3.) This petition must succeed. The proposition that the impugned order was a quasi-judicial order which could not be considered good in law unless it amounted to what is known as a "speaking order" is now well settled (See The State of Punjab v. Bhagat Ram Patanga,1969 CurLJ 630 and Bakshi Ram Gupta v. The State of Haryana and others, C.W. No. 1014 of 1969, decided on 8th August, 1969 decided by Tuli, J., on the 8th of August, 1969, and is not contested before me by the learned Additional Advocate General who appears for the respondents. Another proposition of law which is not disputed before me in view of the judgment of Sodhi, J. in Madan Lal v. The State of Haryana,1970 PunLR 246, is that the impugned order would not be sustainable if it was based on material not disclosed to the petitioner for the purpose of affording him an opportunity to meet it. The impugned order goes against both the propositions just above enunciated. In the first place it neither gives any reasons nor indicates the outlines of the process of reasoning which led the Government to the conclusion that the charge against the petitioner was proved. In facts it contains no discussion of the material considered against the petitioner nor in fact mentions that any such material was available. The order of respondent No. 3 on which the impugned notification is based also suffers from this defect in a full measure. Neither the notification nor that order can, therefore, be said to be a "speaking order" and must be struck down for that reasons alone. However, they suffer from the further serious infirmity that before they were issued the contents of the report of respondent No. 5, on which alone they were based, were not disclosed to the petitioner who, in fact, was never informed that any report from respondent No. 5 had been received and that according to it the charge levelled against the petitioner was found established.