M S RAMAYYA Vs. DISTRICT BOARD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The plaintiff is the appellant. He was the Headmaster of the Board Higher Elementary School, Kamakarai, run and managed by the respondent, the District Board of Coimbatore. On certain charges framed against him and proved, the District Board by its order dated 19th November, 1941, reduced the salary of the plaintiff permanently from Rs. 30 to Rs. 25. Against this order of the District Board he preferred an appeal to the Director of Public Instruction and along with his appeal petition he enclosed a Photostat copy of a letter addressed by one Mayana Gowda to the Deputy Inspector of Schools, one Mr. Sundara Rao and dated 21 April, 1941, to establish that there was a conspiracy between one of his subordinates, Mari Gowda, whose relation was Mayana Gowda, and the Deputy Inspector of Schools, Mr. Sundara Rao. The Director of Public Instruction modified the order of the District Board debarring the plaintiff from being Headmaster at any time but reducing his pay to Rs. 25 for one year only instead of permanently. The Director of Public Instruction wanted a copy of the report of the result of the investigation which the President of the District Board represented to the Director of Public Instruction that he intended to conduct in order to find out how the plaintiff managed to get the Photostat copy of the said letter. The President of the District Board took up the enquiry and framed charges which were communicated to the plaintiff on 3 February, 1944. The plaintiff was asked to submit his explanation and also to answer a questionnaire enclosed with the letter of the President dated 3 February, 1944. The plaintiff never appeared before the President, even though the District Board undertook to meet his traveling expenses and evaded giving any explanation to the charges and submitting the answers to the questionnaire. The President therefore found him guilty of the charges that were framed against him and the plaintiff was dismissed from service with effect from 7th February, 1944. Ex. P-27 dated 17 March, 1944, contains the proceedings of the President of the District Board, Coimbatore.

(2.) The plaintiff instituted the suit out of which this second appeal arises to set aside the order of dismissal and for re-instatement. The plaintiff alleged that the charges framed against him were baseless and that the punishment inflicted upon him was mala fide. The Courts below dismissed the plaintiff's suit on the ground that he had failed to establish that the enquiry by the President was not legal and that the charges were unfounded. The lower appellate Court found that notwithstanding the offer of the District Board to meet the traveling expenses of the plaintiff and his witnesses he had refused to be present at the enquiry and refused to disclose the source from which he obtained the Photostat copy of the letter. According to the opinion of the learned Subordinate Judge, the several replies sent by the plaintiff to the President of the District Board in answer to the charges that were communicated to him were not only impertinent but were even provocative. It was also found that the procedure laid down was properly followed and that there was no violation of any of the rules laid down for an enquiry. In the result, he agreed with the District Munsiff in dismissing the suit.

(3.) In this second appeal, the learned advocate for the appellant placed before me the correspondence and the evidence about the charges. I have no hesitation in agreeing with the conclusion of the learned Subordinate Judge that the attitude of the plaintiff throughout was highly impertinent, if not provocative. There is no ground for complaint so far as the enquiry before the President of the District Board is concerned. The plaintiff never submitted any explanation as to how. he was able to obtain a photostate copy of a letter which should have been in the hands of the Deputy Inspector of Schools. He examined P.W. 1, a karnam, to prove that he showed the letter to him (the plaintiff) and that he took a photostat copy of that letter. But the Deputy Inspector of Schools gave evidence to the effect that he never received that letter. From this evidence it follows that the letter was somehow intercepted by the plaintiff or P.W. 1 or both and that a Photostat copy was taken and sent to the Director of Public Instruction along with the memorandum of appeal. Such therefore is the conduct of the plaintiff and from the evidence on record the only conclusion possible is that not only was he impertinent in his replies to the President of the District Board, but that he is guilty of underhand methods to obtain possession of a letter to the Deputy Inspector of Schools. I therefore agree with the finding of fact that no mala fides in the conduct of the enquiry has been established by the plaintiff and that the charge is well founded.