Sukhdev Singh vs Presiding Officer, Colleges Tribunal, Punjab and Others

Mahesh Grover, J.—The petitioner has prayed for the quashing of Annexure P-1. He was working as a Lecturer in Physical Education with the respondent/College since 1990 and his services were regularized on 29.4.1991. There was an agreement executed between the petitioner and the respondent/College pursuant to which the College agreed to engage the petitioner to serve it as a Lecturer in Sports/games subject to the terms and conditions set out in the agreement. The agreement was to take effect and commence from 12.11.1990 and was determinable as per various terms provided in the agreement itself. The College however, discontinued the course as there weren''t sufficient number of students and therefore, evaluated that the necessity to retain the petitioner no longer existed. His services were therefore, retrenched in anticipation of the approval of the Academic Council of the University which subsequently came through. The petitioner impugned the action of the respondents by way of C.W.P. No. 15411 of 1998 which was also dismissed however, with a direction that as and when the course is resumed, the students would be entitled to be admitted. Impugning his order of retrenchment/dispensation of services, the petitioner then filed an appeal u/s 7-A of the Punjab Affiliated Colleges (Security of Service) of Employees Act, 1974 which was also rejected and is one of the orders impugned by the petitioner.

It is in the backdrop of the aforesaid facts that the petitioner makes a grievance that his services could not be dispensed with in the manner as has been done by the respondent/College considering the fact that he was a regular employee.

On a perusal of the material on record and upon an appraisal of the contentions raised before this Court, I am of the view that the grievance of the petitioner is misplaced. The respondent/College was well within its rights to evaluate whether the services of an employee were necessary to be persisted with or not, by considering the fact that the course and the discipline in which such an employee was to impart educational training, was viable or not. If the college was not having the students or the course was not attracting sufficient attention from the students, then in such an eventuality, the college which is an employer, cannot be forced to retain a post which otherwise is not required. Therefore, there is no justification in the plea raised by the petitioner that he should have been retained in service. That apart, the employer always has a right to abolish a post if upon appropriate appreciation of the material on record, it concludes regarding the permissibility of retention of such a post. There are no mala fides alleged in the petition.

Consequently, the action of the respondent/college which is based on bona fide appreciation of their needs, has to be upheld. It is also to be noticed that both the Director Public Instructions and the Colleges Tribunal have noticed that in case the respondent/college resumes the course, then the petitioner would have a preferential right of appointment. For the aforesaid reasons, I do not find any merit in the petition and the same is dismissed.