LAWS(PAT)-1998-8-29

RAM NIRANJAN SINGH Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

Decided On August 13, 1998
Ram Niranjan Singh Appellant
V/S
STATE OF BIHAR Respondents

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS writ petition has been filed by the petitioner against an order dated 30.4.1967 by which he was dismissed from service. The dismissal order was passed, inter alia, on the allegation that the petitioner was found ab? sent from B.M.P.Campus from 5.3.1967 and appeared there again on 9.3.1967 and during that period he was found under the lock up of Katihar Police Station Hajat involved in a theft case.

(2.) BE that as ft may, tiros Court refuses to exercise its jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India because the cause of action arose for the petitioner in 1967 and he has come to this Court in October, 1996. Learned counsel for the petitioner urged that the impugned order is a void order having been passed by an authority who is not an appropriate authority for passing the impugned order and the said order has been passed without giving him show cause notice which is required under Article 311 of the Constitution of India. Be that as it may, this question cannot be gone into having regard to the inordinate delay in filing this writ petition Learned counsel for the petitioner .submits, relying on some authority, that since it is a void order, the delay should not be taken into account and the order should be deemed to be non -existent in the eye of law and the Court may proceed on the basis as if no such order exists.

(3.) RE presumed to be valid until set aside or otherwise held to be invalid by a court of competent jurisdiction. '' Similarly, Wade and Forsyth in Administrative Law, Seventh Edn., 1994 have stated the law thus at pp. 3411 342: " ......every unlawful administrative . act, however invalid, is merely voidable. But this is no more than the truism that in most situations the only way to resist unlawful action Is by recourse to the law. In a well -known passage Lord Raddiffe said : 'An order, even if not made in good faith, is still an act capable of legal consequences. It bears no brand of invalidity upon its forehead. Unless the necessary proceedings are taken at law to establish the cause of invalidity and to get it quashed or otherwise upset, it will remain as effective for its ostensible purpose as the most impeccable of orders. ' This must be equally true even where the brand of invalidity is plainly visible; for there also the order can effectively be resisted in law only by obtaining the decision of the court. The necessity of recourse to the court has been pointed out repeatedly in the House of Lords and Privy Council without distinction between patent and latent defects. ''