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Judgment
K. Kannan, J.—The revision petition is against the order of dismissal of an application for rejection of plaint moved at the instance of the defendant. The suit had been filed by an ex-agent of the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC for short) for a direction to restore the agency code of the plaintiff and also to release the renewal commission with interest and all payable benefits of the plaintiff. The application was moved by the defendant to state that there was no cause of action for the suit and that the suit itself was barred by law. The contention was rested on a plea regarding the facts which are not in dispute, namely, that the notice of termination of agency was issued on 03.03.2004 for alleged misappropriation of funds of public and a subsequent order of termination of agency on 10.02.2005. The plaintiff had preferred an appeal against the order of termination and it was dismissed on 14.01.2006. A memorial appears to have been presented by the plaintiff to the Chairman and this was also dismissed on 03.02.2007. The plaintiff has challenged this order by means of a writ petition in C.W.P. No. 6982 of 2007 and this was also dismissed by Division Bench of this Court on 14.07.2008. After a disposal of the writ petition, the cause of action in the suit was that in the criminal proceedings which had been initiated against him for misappropriation of the funds, the Criminal Court had found that misappropriation had not been established and he had been acquitted. The Criminal Court had found that the amount had been deposited to the credit of the customers and therefore, the charge against him for misappropriation was not proper. The plaintiff would contend that he was entitled to be restored in his agency and the agency code must be reassigned to him and he also be paid renewed commission for all the terminal benefits.
The fresh cause of action as pleaded is totally without any legal basis. A criminal court cannot decide whether termination of agency was possible for not. A Criminal Court''s jurisdiction is limited to examine whether a case of criminal misappropriation made against the plaintiff had not been established. It does not mean that the LIC is bound to restore to the plaintiff the agency code. The contract of agency created is terminable by the principal for any reason which according to them has sufficient basis. In this case, the plaintiff had lost the confidence of the LIC that has resulted in termination of the code. If the termination were itself to be taken as not for sufficient or appropriate reason, the best benefit that a person can have is only to secure damages. A termination of agency could, therefore, not be a subject of specific performance. Section 14 of the Specific Relief Act details the contracts which are not specifically enforceable as under:-
Contracts not specifically enforceable.-
(1) The following contracts cannot be specifically enforced, namely:--
(a) a contract for the non-performance of which compensation in money is an adequate relief;
(b) a contract which runs into such minute or numerous details or which is so dependent on the personal qualifications or volition of the parties, or otherwise from its nature is such, that the court cannot enforce specific performance of its material terms;
(c) a contract which is in its nature determinable;
(d) a contract the performance of which involves the performance of a continuous duty which the court cannot supervise.
(2) XXX XXX XXX XXX
(3) XXX XXX XXX XXX
There are always some known exceptions to contract of personal service: (i) they include service governed by Article 311; (ii) the provisions of labour enactment are applied to services when a reinstatement shall be permissible and (iii), where the employment is set through statutory rules and the employer is statutory corporation. LIC is a statutory corporation but if any violation of statutory rule is shown and when the termination is shown to be violative of any procedure relating to termination of agency then it should have been possible for a Court to secure to the plaintiff the relief which he was asking. In this case, the plaintiff had made an attempt earlier by approaching the High Court through the writ petition and the same was dismissed. He cannot reopen the case again by only relying on a criminal court judgment that acquitted him. It is too fundamental a proposition of law to be explained that a criminal court judgment and the departmental proceedings operate in different fields and even the standards of proof are different. The suit itself was incompetent and the suit ought to have been taken off the file as barred by law. The application for rejection ought to have been therefore considered in favour of the applicant. The impugned order is set aside and the revision petition is allowed. The plaint is ordered to be rejected.