STATE OF BIHAR Vs. RAM BUJHAN YADAV

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Heard Smt. Neelu Agrawal learned Government Advocate No. 6 for the appellant State of Bihar and Shri Binod Kumar Kanth learned Senior Advocate appearing for the respondent writ petitioners. This intra Court appeal under clause 10 of the Letters Patent of the Patna High Court has been filed by the appellant State of Bihar being aggrieved by the order dated 14.12.2007 passed in C.W.J.C. No. 14075 of 2003 (Ram Bujhan Yadav & Ors. vs. The State of Bihar & Ors.). The writ petition had been filed against the order terminating the services of the petitioners who had been appointed in the year 1989 being the displaced persons of the river Koshi. The said appointments were made under a policy of the State Government to engage such persons in Government service by way of relief to them. This position appears to have continued for quite a long time and finally in the year 2003 the appellant State of Bihar took a stand that such appointments which according to them run into hundreds were illegal for various reasons including the fact that they were made in excess of the percentage of posts reserved for such appointment.

(2.) The learned Single Judge after hearing decided to allow the writ petition and quashed the order of termination holding that the petitioners were displaced persons and they were entitled to such employment under the scheme and therefore to hold their appointments illegal was unjustified. After quashing the order of termination it was further ordered that they shall be reinstated with full back wages within three months from the date of production of a copy of the order.

(3.) The abovementioned order is under challenge in the present Letters Patent Appeal. Learned counsel for the State has drawn our attention to the fact that such appointments come under the category of illegal appointments and thus they being ab-initio void, the mere fact that they continued in service for a long period will not give rise to equity in their favour. She has relied on various decisions of this Court as well as the Hon'ble Supreme Court which we shall deal with later on. The other contention raised by learned counsel is that when such irregularities were detected later on vigilance enquiry was held by the State of Bihar which resulted in the lodging of the F.I.R. against many officers of the State. She points out that once this matter came to the knowledge of the authorities they by way of corrective measure terminated the writ petitioners from service since according to her they were unsustainable in the eyes of law. Further the same has also been done after taking legal opinion from the learned Advocate General. In support of her contention she has relied upon by the judgment of Division Bench of this Court passed in the case of The State of Bihar & Ors. vs. Prashant Kumar Sharma & Ors., 2003 2 PLJR 27. After going through the same, we feel that in the said case the facts are quite different inasmuch as those appointments were not made by the competent authority and later on it was purported to be regularized on the basis of having obtained oral order from the competent officer. This not being the position in the present case, according to us the ratio of the said judgment has no application in this case.