MOHANLAL Vs. STATE OF RAJASTHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) MOHAN Lal has brought this writ petition under article 226 of the Constitution against the State of Rajasthan, with the following allegations. The petitioner was serving as Naib Tehsildar in the Rajasthan State in July, 1953, when he was suspended by an order of the Board of Revenue dated July 14, 1953. Six charges were framed against him, which were enquired into by Collector, Udaipur. On September 21, 1954, the Board of Revenue passed an order reducing the petitioner to the post of Land Records Inspector, with the further stipulation that he would not be given any chance to officiate in a higher capacity for a period of three years and would receive only half his salary (with the usual dearness allowance) for the period of suspension. He filed an appeal before the respondent State on October 4, 1954. That was kept pending for about six years and it was as late as May 13, 1960, that the petitioner received a letter from the Registrar of the Board of Revenue forwarding a notice (Ex. 4) from the respondent informing him that the Government proposed "to enhance the penalty. . . . . . . . . by invoking provision of clause (i) of sub-rule (2) of rule 30 of the Rajasthan Civil Services (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules, 1958" and to dismiss him from Government service. The petitioner was called upon to make his representation, if any, against the proposed enhancement. He submitted his reply (Ex. 6) pointing out that the Board of Revenue had already relaxed its earlier order dated September 21, 1954, by promoting him as Sadar Quanun go on July 9, 1956 and, later, as Naib Tehsildar by the order dated May 11, 1957. He was even allowed to officiate as Tehsildar at Vallabhnagar. Accordingly, he prayed that as his appeal had become infru-ctuous on account of his subsequent promotions, he may be allowed to withdraw it. However, the State Government ultimately dismissed the petitioner by its order (Ex. 8) dated December 5, 1960. With these allegations, the petitioner has challenged the order of his dismissal, mainly on the ground that his appeal before the Government should necessarily have been disposed of in accordance with the Rajasthan Civil Services (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules, 1950 (here-in-after referred to as the Rules of 1950) under which the appellate authority had no power to enhance the penalty. In other words, the petitioner has contended that the Rajasthan Civil Services (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules, 1958 (hereinafter referred to as the Rules of 1958), which had come into force in the meantime, could not apply retrospectively to an order which had been passed more than four years ago. Besides, the petitioner has contended that he was not given a personal hearing by the respondent, that an extraneous ground about the realisation of subscription for the construction of 'sarai' has been taken into consideration in passing the order of dismissal, that some statements (which had not been recorded at the departmental enquiry) have been read in evidence, that no specific findings have been given on the charges which had been framed against him, and that the findings against him are not borne out by the evidence on record. On these grounds, it has been alleged that the order of dismissal is prejudicial. It has therefore been prayed that the orders of the Board of Revenue and the State Government should be quashed and that a writ of mandamus should be issued against the respondent directing it to re-instate the petitioner to his original post.

(2.) IN its reply, the respondent has admitted the narration of the facts mentioned above. For the delay in the disposal of the appeal, it has been contended that the record had to be obtained from different offices, which took time. As regards punishment, the reply is that the Government took the view that "looking to the facts and circumstances of the case, the petitioner has been awarded a lenient punishment. . . . . . . . The Government was also of the view that in such a case a deterrent punishment should have been awarded by the learned Members of the Revenue Board and in these circumstances it thought fit that the penalty imposed by the Revenue Board and the petitioner should be enhanced". It has not been denied that the petitioner's subsequent work was found to be satisfactory and that he had been promoted after his reversion as Land Records INspector. Further, it has been admitted that the Rules of 1950 were repealed by the Rules of 1958 and that the petitioner's appeal was disposed of under the later Rules. The respondent has challenged the contention that the Rules of 1958 could not be applied to the petitioner's case and has pleaded that the Rules are of a procedural nature and could be applied to any pending case. The other contentions of the petitioner regarding the propriety and the legality of the order of dismissal has also been denied.

(3.) WE are fortified in the above conclusion by the following observation of Bowen, L. J. , in Reid Vs. Reid (2): "the particular rule of construction which has been referred to, but which is valuable only when the words of an Act of Parliament are not plain, is embodied in the well-known trite maxim, ominus nova constitutio futuris forman debet non praeteritis - that is, that, except in special cases, the new law ought to be construed so as to interfere as little as possible with vested rights. It seems to me that even in construing an Act which is to a certain extent retrospective, and in construing a section which is to a certain extent retrospective, we ought, nevertheless, to bear in mind that maxim as applicable whenever we reach the line at which the section ceases to be plain. That is a necessary and logical corollary of the general proposition, that you ought not to give a larger retrospective power to a section, even in an Act which is to some extent intended to be retrospective, than you can plainly see the Legislature "meant" (Craies on the Statute Law, fifth edition pp. 380-1 ). So also, we may refer to the observations of Sulaiman J. in United Provinces Vs. Mst. Atiqu Begum (1) that "when a statute deprives a person of his right to sue or affects the power or jurisdiction of a court in enforcing the law as it stands, its retrospective character must be clearly expressed. Ambiguities in it should not be removed by courts, nor gaps filled up in order to widen its applicability. It is a well established principle that such statutes must be construed strictly, and not given a liberal interpretation. " These are sound rules of interpretation. As has been pointed out in Indramoni Nath Vs. Lokanath Barbhuiya (2), "the Court cannot, under the guise of interpretation, do something which the Legislature itself has not been able to fulfil. "