HARBANS SINGH IQBAL SINGH Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS petition under article 226 of the Constitution challenges the order of the state of the Punjab (the respondent to the petition) D/-the 30th of August 1960 (copy Annexure 'h') removing the petitioner Harbans Singh Dhillon, Block development and Panchayat Officer, from Government service with immediate effect.

(2.) THE petitioner is in the permanent service of the State of the Punjab and from 1956 to April 1958 he was Block Development Officer at Phillaur in the Jullundur district. One Tripta Devi, a sewing teacher who was working under the control of the petitioner, appeared on the 27th of September 1957, before Shri Sapuran singh (then Deputy Secretary Development to the Punjab Government) and made before him a complaint (copy Annexure 'b') in which she alleged that in order to outrage her modesty the Block Development Officer took her to Jullundur and made her stay in the house of a pleader instructing her to given out that she was his wife. In that house the Block Development Officer began to molest her and with great difficulty she saved for inquiry to Shri R. S. Talwar, I. A. S. (who was then Deputy Commissioner of the Jullundur District ). Shri Talwar submitted his report to the Development Commissioner (copy Annexure 'c' to the petition) in which he exonerated the petitioner, and subsequently the petitioner was allowed in the year 1958 to cross his efficiency bar and to draw his increment according to the rules.

(3.) A Lady Social Education Organiser, named Surjit Kaur, was working under him while the petitioner was posted at Phillaur. Certain complaints were made by her and the Government deputed Shri K. K. Dhir, Addotional General Assistant to the deputy Commissioner of Jullundur, for making an inquiry into those complaints. During the pendency of this inquiry and in the absence of Shri Dhri from his Court room there was some altercation between Surjit Kaur and the petitioner and it appears that she gave him a beating with her sandal and purse. Government directed Shri Dhir to make an inquiry in this incident also, but the petitioner and surjit Kaur withdrew their respective complaints against each other and Shri Dhir made his report on the 10th of August 1958.