EXCISE AND TAXATION COMMISSIONER Vs. RAM BHEJA MAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The facts leading to the filing of this Letters Patent Appeal against the judgment and order of a learned Single Judge of this Court, dated December 16, 1966, allowing the writ petition of Ram Bheja Mal respondent and quashing the order of his revision to his parent department, may first be surveyed, I will prefer to call the parties to this appeal by their original titles in the writ petition, i.e. Ram Bheja Mal respondent will be called by me in this judgment as petitioner and the appellants (the Excise and Taxation Commissioner, Haryana, and the State of Haryana) will be referred to by me as the Excise Department and the Government respectively.

(2.) The petitioner was a permanent Senior Clerk in the Jail Department of the Punjab State. In September, 1953, he was selected for being posted as an Excise Sub-Inspector. According to the allegation of the petitioner he was selected through the Subordinate Services Selection Board. This part of the allegation has, however, been denied by the Government. Consequent on his selection for appointment as Excise Sub-Inspector. While the petitioner was posted as such at Rewari, he is alleged to have been detected by the Flying Squad set up by the Finance Department of the Government to be travelling without ticket on a Government bus on August 2, 1963. No explanation of the petitioner was, however, called in that connection and no charge-sheet was ever given to him. By the impugned order, dated September 9, 1963 (Annexure 'C') the petitioner was directed by the Excise and Taxation Commissioner, Punjab to be reverted to his substantive post of a Clerk in has parent department with immediate effect. The petitioner was directed to report for duty in the office of the Inspector General of Prisons, Punjab Chandigarh, curtailing his joining time to the minimum. It was to quash the said order, dated September, 9, 1963, that Civil Writ No. 419 of 1965 was filed in this Court on February 11, 1965, about seventeen months after the impugned order was passed, the order in question was impugned principally on two grounds viz :-

(3.) The writ petition was contested. A joint written-statement was filed on behalf of the Government as well as the Excise Department. It was not admitted that the petitioner had been selected by the Subordinate Services Selection Board, Punjab. It was stated that adverse remarks had been communicated to the petitioner on September 9, 1963, on his work and conduct for the year 1962-63, during which period the petitioner had worked as Excise Sub-Inspector in the Delhi Administration. It was added that neither the adverse remarks conveyed to the petitioner nor the incident of August 7, 1963, had anything to do with the petitioner's reversion. According to the averments in paragraph 6 of the written-statement the petitioner was sent back to his parent department as Clerk which was not by way of punishment. In paragraph 7 of the return, specific mention has been made of the communication sent to the petitioner in reply to the application of the petitioner, dated September, 13, 1963, wherein it was stated as below :-