MUNICIPAL COMMITTEE, AMRITSAR Vs. ASA NAND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal under clause 10 of the Letters Patent against the order of a Single Judge accepting a plaintiff's second appeal and restoring the decree of the trial Court for a declaration in his favour.

(2.) BRIEFLY the facts are that Asa Nand plaintiff was employed by the Amritsar Municipal Committee as an Octroi Moharrir from July 1950 to the 11th of June 1955 when he was dismissed from service by a resolution of the Committee after he had been placed under suspension and an enquiry had been held into certain charges of misconduct levelled against him. After unsuccessfully appealing against his dismissal the plaintiff finally instituted a suit in March 1958 claiming a declaration that the resolution dismissing the plaintiff from the service of the Municipal Committee was illegal, arbitrary, capricious, ultra vires and abuse of the powers vested in the Committee by law and that he should be deemed to be in service from the date of the dismissal.

(3.) THE question of the truth or falsehood of the charges levelled against the plaintiff does not appear to have been raised at any stage and the plaintiff's suit was decreed by the trial Court simply on the finding that there was a defect in the procedure which preceded the plaintiff's dismissal. The Court of first appeal's finding is that there was in fact no illegality. The illegality found to exist in the procedure by the trial Court and the learned Single Judge was that after the factual report of the inquiring officer had been drawn up holding the charges to be established, no notice was given to the plaintiff to show cause against the order of dismissal which was proposed to be passed against him as required by rule 7(6) of the Civil Service (Punishment and Appeal) Rules.