RAM SWAROOP YADAV Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Annexure-8 dated 1.8.96 is the order of termination, which is under challenge in the present writ application. Petitioner terms the order of termination to be illegal, arbitrary and misplaced because he claims to have been appointed by a competent authority i.e. the Divisional Forest Officer. The post on which Petitioner was appointed was post of a Mali.

(2.) Contention of the counsel representing the Petitioner is that Petitioner was in service of the Respondents in one or the other capacity for a very long time. His earliest introduction to the system is evident from Annexure-11 when he came to be appointed en 4.9.1974 on daily wages as a Cattle Protector (Pashu Rakshak). It is his case that looking at his good work which he performed, the Divisional Forest Officer decided to appoint the Petitioner on the post of a Mali giving him a pay scale. This appointment came to be made on 3.11.1995 and the said order is Annexure-6 to the writ application. Petitioner joined the post and started working but he was subsequently informed that he stood terminated by the order dated 1.8.1996. Though the Petitioner has challenged the said order, by filing the present writ application but he still feigns ignorance about the existence of such an order. It is his case that the said order was never served on him and there is some indication to this extent from some of the documents which he has annexed with the supplementary affidavit. In the totality of the circumstances, the long association of the Petitioner with the department and taking a compassionate view of the matter, he prays that he ought to be reinstated and the order of termination quashed.

(3.) The stand of the State in the counter affidavit is that within months of the appointment of the Petitioner, he came to be terminated. When the higher authorities came to learn that irregular appointments have been made by the then Divisional Forest Officer, just before his retirement, under what was known as Draught Prone Area Programme. No procedure for appointment was followed. It was a unilateral decision of the then Divisional Forest Officer to make the appointment in total breach of not only Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India but even the laid down procedure in this regard.