SHEO NARAIN Vs. DISTJUDGE, SHAHJAHANPUR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from the order of the learned District Judge of Shahjahanpur by which order he committed Rai Bahadur Pandit Shea Narain Misra, the Chairman of the District Board of Shahjahanpur and Sardar Indar Singh, the engineer and acting secretary of the Board, for 6 months, for contempt of Court. Both these persons appeal against the order of the learned District Judge.

(2.) There apparently was friction in the District Board of Shahjahanpur between the Chairman and the members of the Board on the one hand, and Mr. Kailashi Nath Kapoor who was secretary and had held that office for some 12 years on the other. The result was that by a resolution dated 22 June, 1932 the Board dismissed Mr. Kailashi Nath from his office alleging as reason therefor, firstly, the economic situation and the desitability of the amalgamating the offices of the engineer and the secretary, and, secondly, that Mr. Kailashi Nath was unsatisfactory, incompetent, and had been creating friction among the members of the Board.

(3.) On the 23 June Mr. Kailashi Nath filed a suit for an injunction restraining the defendants from interfering with the discharge of his duties as secretary and prohibiting them from illegally discharging him from that office. I would like to note here that though in the ordinary case of a master and a servant an injunction certainly would not lie restraining a master from dismissing his servant, the remedy of the servant, if he was wrongly dismissed, would be for damages; but in the case of the District Board they are governed by a statute. Under Section 71, District Boards Act, (10 of 1922) the Board may punsih or dismiss a secretary subject to the rules made under the authority of the statute by the Local Government. The rules in accordance with the statute have been framed by the Local Government. Rule 3 enacts as follows: No officer or servant shall be dismissed without a reasonable opportunity being given to him of being heard in his own defence, etc.