VILLAGE SANITATION PANCHAYAT COMMITTEE Vs. S. R. DESHMUKH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) 1. The applicant is the Villager Sanitation Panchayat of Chandur. The Panchayat on 31st July 1926 passed a. resolution dismissing the non-applicant. The non-applicant in the Small Cause Court sued for damages caused by his sudden dismissal. He stated that he was not able to secure employment for a period of three months and thus sustained a loss of Rs. 120. The learned Small Cause Court Judge in a very careful judgment has awarded this sum to the plaintiff with interest.

(2.) IT is first urged before me that the applicant Panchayat was a public officer within the meaning of Section 80, Civil P.C., and hence in the absence of notice the suit was untenable. Eeliance is placed on Section 2, Cl 17 (f),and (g), Civil P.C. In Cecil Gray v. Cantonment Committee of Poona [1910] 84 Bom. 583 it was held that the Cantonment Committee was a 'public officer." The learned Judges state that a "public officer" means, in the first place, a "person" and the word "person" includes any body or association of individuals. I must, with all respect, disagree with a finding that a committee can be a "public officer." In Section 2, Clause 17, Civil P.C., it is stated that "public officer" means a person falling under any of the descriptions which follow; and while "a person" includes any body or association of individuals, it does not follow that any body or association of individuals need fall under any of the descriptions given A "committee" cannot be described as an "officer" or "a person who holds any office." In my opinion it would be impossible to discover in any standard work an instance of the use of the common word "officer" to denote an association of individuals.

(3.) ON the next ground it is argued that, as a matter of fact, the plaintiff was rightly dismissed. I do not see any reason to interfere with the finding of fact.