Gorakh Nath Singh Yadav vs District Inspector of Schools and Others

H.L. Gokhale, C.J.—Heard Mr. H.N. Singh with Mr. Babu Lal in support of this appeal. Mr. G.K. Singh appears for the contesting respondents No. 3 while Mr. A.C. Mishra Standing Counsel appears for respondent Nos. 1 and 2.

The appeal seeks to challenge two orders dated 12th April, 2005 and 30th September 2005 passed by learned Single Judge. The second of the two orders is the order on the review application No. 130581 of 2005. This order declines to entertain the review application on the ground that the counsel for the applicant had been changed and another counsel was appearing. The learned Judge observed that the counsel not appearing in the case earlier cannot file the application for recalling the order.

Mr. H.N. Singh submits that there is no such requirement under the High Court Rules.

Mr. G.K. Singh, on the other hand, has drawn our attention towards the judgment of the Apex Court in Tamil Nadu Electricity Board and another Vs. N. Raju Reddiar and another, . In the context of the review petition, the Supreme Court has deprecated the practice of changing the Advocate on record and that too without obtaining the consent of the earlier Advocate.

In the instant case, the ground of review is that the Advocate appearing earlier had committed a mistake in not challenging the order of the termination of the appellant herein. If mistake was attributed to the Advocate concerned, the minimum thing that was required was to at least obtain his consent when the Advocate was sought to be changed but that was not done.

In our view there is no error on the part of the learned Single Judge in dismissing the review application.

Even while examining the merits of the first order what we find is that the appellant had filed a petition praying that he be paid his salary and be allowed to continue to work in the concerned Educational Institution which is a minority Institution. What is material to notice is that much prior to this petition, one petition had been filed by the then Management of the Educational Institution challenging the appointment of the petitioner and that petition was disposed of by the High Court on 14th May, 1993 with a direction to the District Inspector of Schools to pass a reasoned order and that order was passed by the District Inspector of Schools on 24th July, 1993 and it was placed on record of the present petition by the counsel for the State by filing a supplementary counter affidavit on 1st April, 1994. Inasmuch as the appellant had an interim order in the present writ petition he continued to receive the salary and he did not care to challenge the order of the District Inspector of Schools which held that his appointment was without any authorization.

In these circumstances, when the matter reached nearly after 11 years in April, 2005, the learned Single Judge found that the order of disapproval itself was not challenged but salary was being paid. The learned Single Judge had noticed that since the said order was not challenged the petitioner could not be granted any salary.

Thus, even otherwise also, there is no error on the part of the learned Single Judge in passing the earlier order which is also sought to be challenged separately in this appeal.

In such circumstances, we do not find any error in either of the two orders passed by the learned Single Judge. Appeal is, accordingly, dismissed.