N BAKSI Vs. ACCOUNTANT GENERAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Mr. N. Baksi, I. C. S., at present Member, Board of Revenue, Bihar is the petitioner in this case. The prayer made in petition, which is one under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, is for the issue of a writ in the nature of mandamus, or, in the alternative, for any other appropriate direction, order or writ commanding the Accountant-General, Bihar, to discharge the statutory duty imposed upon him in law as laid down in the Superior Civil Services Rules read with Article 314 of the Constitution & in obedience thereto to pay the prescribed passage money for his wife and children as claimed by the petitioner. It is founded on the complaint that the Accountant General, Bihar, though at the first instance on 20th June, 1956, had, as warranted in law, issued the necessary passage certificates to them along with the one to the petitioner but thereafter by his semi-official letter No. GA-ICS-B-4439, dated the 4th December, 1956, he has arbitrarily and without any legal justification refused to pay the same to his wife and children and has thus denied a right which the petitioner is entitled to in law.

(2.) Mr. Baksi was selected for the Indian Civil Service at the open competitive examination held In London in August 1924 and joined it in Bihar in November, 1925. His claim is that he entered into the service under a covenant with the Secretary of State for India assuring a guarantee for permanency as also for certain other rights and privileges in regard to his service as stipulated in what was then known as "The Superior Civil Services (Revision of Pay and Pension) Rules 1924" or for brevity called as "The Statutory Rules and Orders 1924" hereafter to be referred to as "The Statutory Rules". It is not denied that these Statutory Rules did apply to the case of Mr. Baksi at the time when he entered the Indian Civil Service and were statutory in character, as is clear from the Resolution referred to in the despatch from the Secretary of State for India No. 27 -- Services and General, dated 11th-17th December, 1924 which was in the following terms:

(3.) According to Mr. Baksi, the rights assured in the Statutory Rules, in spite of all amendments made therein from time to time, stand substantially unaltered and remain in force up-today and further that they have been all along since their inception affirmed and preserved in all the constitutional documents that have replaced the Government of India Act 1919 one after another including the present Constitution of India. It has, therefore, been argued by Mr. Das appearing for him that the rights thus assured under the Statutory Rules and -thereafter all along affirmed and preserved by all the subsequent constitutional documents governing India including the present Constitution under its Article 314 cannot be whittled down or altered or amended even by any legislative measure and much less by an executive order unless the Constitution itself to that extent is amended or altered. In the alternative, it has also been argued that the passage benefit as provided under the Statutory Rules is property and as such any denial thereof by the Accountant General is a contravention of the fundamental right as laid down in Article 31 of the Constitution. And, therefore, it is stated, the petitioner is entitled to the writ as prayed for.