BABU RAM Vs. DOMINION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a plaintiff's second appeal against the dismissal of his suit by a Subordinate Judge first class, Delhi, which dismissal was confirmed in first appeal by the Senior Subordinate Judge exercising appellate powers.

(2.) The appellant was a Police Officer stationed at Delhi. He had first come to Delhi in the year 1924 being posted there as a Probationer Sub-Inspector under orders of the Deputy Inspector-General, Ambala, within whose jurisdiction Delhi then was. In the year 1942 the appellant was confirmed, as Assistant Sub Inspector by the same authority, and in the year 1944 he was promoted as Sub Inspector again at Delhi also by same authority. On the 4th of May 1945, an order was passed by the Senior Superintendent of Police, Delhi, dismissing the appellant from service. The appellant filed a departmental appeal to the Chief Commissioner who then exercised the power of an Inspector-General of Police. On the failure of this appeal, the present suit was filed by which the plaintiff claimed a declaration that he had been wrongfully dismissed from service. By the plaint, the order of dismissal was challenged as illegal and also as unjustified on the facts of the case. The plaint, however, contains no particulars on which the plaintiff based his assertion, to use the language of the prayer clause, that the order of dismissal and the order of the Chief Commissioner were "void, illegal, unjust, inoperative and unenforceable". The case before the trial Court seems to have turned upon the applicability of Section 240 of the Government of India Act. It was urged that the plaintiff having been appointed by the Deputy Inspector General of Police, Ambala, could not be dismissed by a Superintendent of Police, Delhi. It also seems to have been urged that compliance had not been made with Sub-section (3) of Section 240 of the Government of India Act.

(3.) The case for the defendant, the Dominion of India, was that Section 240 of the Government of India Act had no application by reason of Section 243 of the same Act read with Section 7 of the Police Act, Act V of 1861. It was also urged that the Senior Superintendent of Police who passed the " order of dismissal had been granted the powers of Deputy Inspector-General of Police under a Rule, purporting to be made under Section 7 of the Police Act, dated the 20th April 1933, by which the Senior Superintendent of Police purported to be endowed with the powers of a Deputy Inspector General in regard to the infliction of departmental punishments under Rule 16 (1) of the Revised Chapter of Punishments of the Punjab Police Rules.