R S E B Vs. MANOHAR LAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) WHEN the State or Corporation of the Boards created by the Statute who have also the legal departments to advise and panel of lawyers to advise and act, on their behalf, prefer appeals in cases which are squarely covered by a catena of cases decided by the High Court and the Apex Court of country namely, Hon'ble the Supreme Court of India it shocks the conscience of the court as the money spent on litigations, which is Tax payees money can better be utilized in development works. It is all the more disgusting when it is manifest from the record of the case that several counsel have been changed in the case at appellate stage for reasons best known as if, that is either going to improve the case or would change the settled law. The present case is not an exception to this.

(2.) APPELLANT filed this Special Appeal against the judgment of the learned Single Judge, dated 2nd August 1984, whereby the learned Single Judge allowed the writ petition filed by the petitioner-respondent and set aside the order of his compulsory retirement, dated 24. 10. 1975.

(3.) MR. R. M. Lodha appearing on behalf of the Electricity Board before us vehemently argued that the order passed by Hon'ble Chief Justice, MR. P. K. Benerjee is pervrse in as much as he has not gone into the pleadings of the parties in the writ petition and further that he failed to appreciate that two High Power Committees considered the case of the respondent before the order of compulsory retirement was passed and in such circumstances no interference should have been done. It is submitted that against the respondent there were criminal cases pending and he was also facing charge-sheet which are very material circumstances for consideration of passing the order of compulsory retirement. His submission is that the order of compulsory retirement cannot be based as a punishment without holding the enquiry but when it is passed in public interest under the provisions of the regulations, the considerations arc different. The Board in exercise of its powers given under Regulation 18 of the Rajasthan State Electricity Board Employees Service Regulations, 1964, considered his previous service record and came to the finding that his continuation in service was not in nature of public interest and, therefore, he should be retired compulsorily. Learned counsel further submitted that the suspension order and the charge-sheet were not the basis of passing of the order of compulsory retirement and further that mere pendency of departmental enquiry would not debar the department from passing an order of retirement on an overall assessment of the retiring official's record. It is submitted that the order dated 24. 10. 1975 neither contained any stigma nor was by way of punishment. Neither the proceedings of the Screening Committee nor Committee's meeting of official members contained any reference which is subject matter of the departmental enquiry or the criminal cases but the order was passed on examination of personal files and confidential reports of the concerned officials. Learned counsel, relied on The State of Bombay vs. Saubhag Chand M. Doshi (1), Madan Gopal vs. The State of Punjab & others (2), Tara Singh etc. vs. State of Rajasthan and others (3), The State of U. P. Vs. Ram Chandra Trivedi (4), Brij Mohan Singh Chopra vs. State of Punjab (5), Bihar Rajya Vidhyut Parishad Field Kamgar Union vs. State of Bihar & others (6) and Shyamlal Vs. State of U. P. (7 ).