AI Structured Summary
Not yet generated for this judgment
Judgment
Sukhdev Singh Kang, J.—Raman Narang Petitioner was appointed as Secretary to the Municipal Committee, Sangat, District Bhatinda on October 26, 1966. He was confirmed in this post by the Municipal Committee on April 24, 1967. Certain incidents took place in the month of November, 1970 which culminated in the passing of resolution No. 135 by the Municipal Committee in its meeting held on September 29. 1970 whereby the Petitioner was suspended from the service Aggrieved, the Petitioner filed an appeal. Later on he was dismissed vide resolution No. 158 dated 6 2.1971. Vide resolution dated March 30, 1971 the Municipal Committee abolished the post of Secretary. The Deputy Commissioner approved the budget of the Municipal Committee on March 31, 1971 wherein no provision was made for the post of Secretary to the Municipal Committee. The Daputy Commissioner allowed the appeal of the Petitioner on July 1, 1975 and act aside the order of Petitioner''s dismissal. A copy of that is appended as Annexure P 1 to the writ petition. Even thereafter despite repeated representations to the Municipal Committee Respondent No. 2, the Petitioner was not reinstated and given the consequential reliefs to which he was entitled under law. Dissatisfied the Petitioner has filed the present writ petition.
Broadly the facts are admitted by Municipal Committee, Respondent No. 2. The order of dismissal are sought to be justified on the ground that the Petitioner had absented himself from bis post and had also embezzled the municipal funds and had gone away taking with him the keys of the Municipal Commitee. It is averred that the order Annexure P-1 passed by the Deputy Commissioner was not valid because the appeal filed by the Petitioner was barred by limitation. It was also pleaded that the post of Secretary to the Municipal Committee had been abolished with the concurrence of the State Government.
Elaborate provisions have been made in the Punjab Municipal General Rules framed u/s 240 of the Punjab Municipal Act for dealing with the delinquent, municipal employees. Rule 2 of Part IV of the Rules provides that no officer or servant of the Municipal Committee can be dismissed except after an enquiry is held in accordance with Rule 3 whereunder a detailed enquiry is envisaged by this rule. The employer as well as the employee are permitted to lead their evidence en the charges and then findings have to be given on each charge. In the present case the Petitioner was admittedly a confirmed employee of Respondent No. 2. No enquiry was held against him and he was not dismissed by following the procedure laid down in Rule 3 The Deputy Commissioner rightly quashed the order of the dismissal of the Petitioner because they were not sustainable under law. The Municipal Committee did not challenge the order Annexure P-I before any higher authority and it had become final between the parties. This order was passed by the competent authority in exercise of statutory powers The Municipal Authority is bound to implement this order. It cannot avoid it on the facile ground of its being passed is a time barred appeal. Even the order passed by a competant authority in a time barred appeal remains a valid order till it is set aside by a superior authority.
The post of a Secretary to the Municipal Committee is a statutory post created u/s 38 of the Punjab Municipal Act. Section 38 at the material time read as under:
(1) Every commitee shall, from time to time, at a special meeting, appoint subject to the approval of the State Government one of its members other than associate member or any other person, to be its secretary, and may, at a like meeting, suspend, remove or dismiss or otherwise punish any person so appointed.
(2) ... ... ... ...
(3) When a member of the committee is appointed secretary he shall receive no remuneration in respect of his services When any other person is appointed secretary, the committee may, with the previous sanction of the State Government, assign to him such remuneration as it may think fit.
From the clear language of Section 38 it is manifest that the Municipal Committee could not abolish the post of the Secretary. Every Municipal Committee has to have a Secretary. It is not necessary to examine this point in detail because the matter is not resintegra. In Municipal Committee, Gurdaspur v. The State of Punjab 1971 (2) S.L.R. 693 it has been held as under:
A secretary once having been appointed can only be removed, dismissed or otherwise punished by the Committee in accordance with the Act or the rules made thereunder, but the post cannot be abolished so as to deprive the incumbent thereof from holding the same. There are rules framed u/s 240 of the Act and called the Punjab Municipal General Rules which lay down the procedure for the dismissal of an officer or an employee of a Municipal Committee. In the face of such a patently illegal resolution of the Committee, abolishing a statutory post, no special reasons other than what we find in the file were required to be recorded.
Earlier a Division Bench of this Court in The Municipal Committee, Rampura v. Shri Amar Nath Karkara 1955 Curr. L. J. 345 in the context of Punjab Municipal Account Code enacted by virtue of the powers conferred on the Government by the Punjab Municipal Act observed as under:
The Respondent had been appointed to a post which is provided by Sub-rule (1). So long as his appointment was not terminated in accordance with the statutory provisions or the rules, that result could not be achieved by retrenching the post because sub rule (1) compulsorily provides for the existence of that pest. Even if ordinarily under sub rule (2) the Appellant-committee could appoint an Assistant Octroi Superintendent and confer upon him the functions and duties imposed upon the Octroi Superintendent that power was not initially exercised and it was under Sub-rule (1) that an Octroi Superintendent was appointed. Once an appointment had been made under that provision, the post could not be abolished in the absence of any specific provision in the rules or the statute so as to deprive its present incumbent from holding that post.
There is no provision in the Punjab Municipal Act or the Punjab Municipal Rules framed thereunder authorising the Municipal Committee to abolish the post of a Secretary. The mere fact that the State Government had confirmed, as alleged by Respondent No. 2, the decision of Respondent No. 2 to abolish the post of a Secretary, will not make the orders legal or valid when they are without jurisdiction.
In fairness to Mr. A.L. Bansal, Learned Counsel for Respondent No. 2, it must be noticed that Mr. Bansal had raised a preliminary objection that order Annexure P-1 has been passed in July, 1975 and the writ petition was filed in 1978 after about three years. Thus it suffers from laches. I do not find any merit in this contention. Firstly this plea was not taken in the written statement and the Petitioner had no opportunity to meet it Secondly the Deputy Commissioner had passed order Annexure P-1 on Ist July, 1975, setting aside the Petitioner''s dismissal. This order was in favour of the Petitioner. The Petitioner has not come forward for quashing of this | order. So the Petitioner has prayed that this order should be implemented. He has not rushed to the Court immediately after the passing of the order. He has made a number of representations to the Respondents to implement the order Annexure P. 1. When he did not get any relief only then be has approached this Court. So there is no delay in filing the writ petition as such.
For the foregoing reasons, I allow this writ petition and quash the resolution dated 30 3 1971 of Respondent No. 2 and direct Respondent No. 2 to reinstate the Petitioner as Secretary to the Municipal Committee with effect from the date he was dismissed from service. The Petitioner shall also be entitled to all the consequential reliefs and benefits accuring or flowing from his reinstatement as Secretary to the Municipal Committee, Sangat now Rama. Respondent No. 2 shall pay the Petitioner his costs. Counsel fee Rs. 200/- .