BIMALACHARAN BATABYAL Vs. TRUSTEES FOR THE INDIAN MUSEUM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a suit brought by Bimalacharan Batabyal against the Trustees of the Indian Museum, in which the plaintiff is claiming a very large sum of money, which is said to represent an amount which he would have earned during the unexpired period of his service with the defendants and to be in the nature of commutation of the pension to which he would have been entitled had he completed his service with the defendants.

(2.) The plaintiff was employed by the defendants as their head clerk and it is not disputed, and indeed it appears quite definitely from the service book, that his service with the defendants was of an entirely satisfactory character. The plaintiff was formerly employed under the Geological Survey of India and at that time it may be that he was in the position of a Government servant, but subsequently, upon his own application, he was taken into the service of the defendants and became a clerk to the Trustees of the Indian Museum on 14th February 1917, at a salary of Rs. 60 a month. That salary, in the following year was increased to Rs. 63 a month and then, in November of the year 1918, his salary was again altered and he was put upon a scale, of pay starting with Rs. 75 and rising by annual increment of Rs. 5 a year to a maximum of Rs. 175 a month and in Col. 2 of the service book, which the plaintiff had, his employment or the nature of his appointment is described as being "substantive and permanent." I do not think it necessary to deal with the correspondence which was put in evidence in any great detail. It is sufficient I think to say that, at the time when the plaintiff was appointed as head clerk by the defendants, the defendants at first sought the sanction of the Government of India for the making of that appointment and they were informed that no such sanction was required as they had sufficiently wide inherent powers to make an appointment of that kind of their own motion by virtue of the provisions of Section 9, Museum Act, which provides that: subject to such regulations and conditions as may be prescribed by them in this behalf, the trustees shall appoint such officers and servants as may be necessary or proper for the care or management of the trust-property and may assign to such officers and servants such pay as they may think fit.

(3.) It appears that the real reason why the defendants applied to the Government of India for formal sanction to the granting of the increase of pay to the plaintiff, which the trustees were desirous of making, was because the defendants were anxious that the additional sum necessary for covering this increased pay should be provided by the Government of India by way of an increase to the annual fixed grant of Rs. 18,410, which is made by the Government of India to the Trustees of the Indian Museum for the purpose of the care and maintenance of the Indian Museum. During the course of the years 1925-26 and the early part of 1927, correspondence took place between the defendants and the Government of India with regard to this matter, and the attitude adopted by the Government of India was that they did not intend to increase the amount of the fixed grant made by them to the trustees and that, as the trustees had thought fit in the exercise of their powers under Section 9 of Act 1910 to raise the pay of their clerk, that was a matter which the Trustees should provide for by means of re-adjustment of their expenditure within the limits of the fixed grant which they received. In March 1927, the defendants received a letter from the Government of India, in such unequivocal terms, with regard to their finance, that they apparently then came definitely to the conclusion that they would not get any increased grant from the Government of India and that, therefore, they would have to re-adjust their expenditure to provide for the increase which they had granted to their clerk (the plaintiff) some two years before, or else they would have to put the clerk back on a different scale and reduce his emoluments. I am not concerned to enquire into the policy or the financial arrangements which the Trustees thought fit to adopt. The fact is that, by a resolution of the Trustees of the Indian Museum, at a meeting held on Monday, 11 April 1927, they resolved: We having considered the question of increase in pay of the head clerk sanctioned by resolution No. 1, dated 6 January 1925, find it necessary to revert the head clerk to the old scale, with effect from 12 April 1927.