BILQEES Vs. STATE OF J AND K

JUDGEMENT

(1.) HEARD . 1. Petitioner Dr. Bilqees w/o Firdous Ahmad Mir R/o Bandipora Tehsil and District Bandipora, is a doctor by profession. She was posted as lady Assistant Surgeon in Sub District Hospital, Bandipora. Besides doing Government job she was also running a private Nursing Home namely Al Firdous Nursing Home at Bandipora, Vide order No. DDCB/12989 -92 dated 08.01.2007. District Development Commissioner, Baramulla has placed the petitioner under suspension with immediate effect and has attached her with the Directorate of Health Services, Kashmir, Srinagar on the ground that a patient had died in her Nursing Home allegedly as a lack of medical facilities and proper care. The petitioner is aggrieved of the same and has through, the medium of the present petition challenged the order of suspension on various ground inter -alia that the order of suspension has been passed without jurisdiction as the District Development Commissioner has under the provisions of law no power and competence to place a doctor under suspension.

(2.) LEARNED Counsel for the petitioner vehemently argued that the order impugned by means of which the petitioner has been placed under suspension by the District Development Commissioner, Baramulla is non -est in the eye of law as the same has been passed by an authority who had no jurisdiction to do so. According to the learned Counsel under Rule 31 of the Jammu and Kashmir Civil Service Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules, 1956 only the appointing authority has got the jurisdiction to place an employee under suspension and since the appointing authority of the petitioner is the Government and not the District Development Commissioner, the order of suspension is bad in law.

(3.) THE plea raised by the petitioner regarding the jurisdiction and powers of the District Development Commissioner to place her under suspension appears to be without any subsistence.