Rajasthan High Court - Jaipur
Durga Prasad Sharma & Ors vs The Registrar General Raj High on 8 March, 2013
Author: Amitava Roy
Bench: Amitava Roy
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE FOR RAJASTHAN AT JAIPUR BENCH, JAIPUR :: ORDER :: D.B. CIVIL WRIT PETITION NO.1042/2004(PIL) Durga Prasad Sharma & Ors. Vs. The Registrar General, Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur & Ors. Date of Order : 8th March, 2013 HON'BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE MR. AMITAVA ROY HON'BLE DR. JUSTICE SMT. MEENA V. GOMBER Mr.Vimal Choudhary with Mr.Gajanand Sharma Mr.N.L.Gupta, for the petitioners. Mr.Sanjeev Prakash Sharma, Senior Advocate with Mr.Abdul Shekh Parveen, Mr.N.K.Maloo, Senior Advocate with Mr.V.K.Tamoliya, Mr.Biri Singh, Senior Advocate with Mr.Yashwant Singh, Ms.Sonia Shandilya, for the respondents. ***** BY THE COURT (PER HON'BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE) :
The instant proceeding, in the form of public interest litigation, has been instituted seeking to espouse the cause of the government employees of the State, particularly engaged in the civil courts. At the time of initiation of the present lis, the petitioner No.1, as represented by him, was office the bearer of several organizations devoted to the objective of promoting the interest of such employees. The petitioner No.2 is a retired Lower Division Clerk (LDC) and the petitioner No.3 then, was the Office Superintendent (under suspension), Dacoity Court under the District & Sessions Judge, Dholpur.
We have heard Mr.Vimal Choudhary with Mr.Gajanand, learned counsel for the petitioners and Mr.Sanjeev Prakash Sharma, Senior Advocate assisted by Mr.Abdul Shekh Parveen, Mr.N.K.Maloo, Senior Advocate assisted by Mr.V.K.Tamoliya, Mr.Biri Singh, Senior Advocate assisted by Mr.Yashwant Singh and Ms.Sonia Shandilya, learned counsel for the respondents.
The petitioners have imputed widespread, high-handed and mala fide action of the respondent No.3 in the capacity of District & Sessions Judge, Bharatpur and apprehended identical actions by him as District & Sessions Judge, Dholpur Judgeship. According to them, this respondent assumed the Office of the District & Sessions Judge, Bharatpur on 31.7.2002 and continued as such till 18.12.2003, whereafter he took over as District & Sessions Judge, Dholpur on 19.12.2003. The petitioner have averred that during 1.8.2002 to 18.12.2003, this respondent indiscriminately and without any basis sanctioned by law, amongst others, selectively ordered compulsory retirement of 25 employees of Bharatpur Judgeship with oblique motive of filling up the vacant posts by persons of his choice. He also compelled many to take voluntary retirement under the threat inter alia of penalizing them under the Rajasthan Civil Service (Classification, Control & Appeal) Rules, 1958 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Rules'). Apart from illegally ousting these persons from service to accommodate his chosen few, this respondent also ordered recovery of huge amounts from the employees of the same Judgeship on the conjured plea of having been paid in excess of their pay and allowances and that too, without affording any opportunity of hearing to them. He also caused to be served 100 charge-sheets under Rule 17 of the Rules and also marred the Annual Confidential Reports (ACRs) of various employees to spoil their service prospects. He also resorted to indiscriminate transfer of several employees from one court to the other. Further, against 16 advertised vacancies for the post of LDCs in his Judgeship, he recruited 37 persons in utter disregard of the provisions of the relevant rules. While doing so, the petitioners have alleged that he excluded the incumbents belonging to his caste from the purview of his illegal, partisan and motivated actions and instead favoured them in all respects.
In reply, the respondent No.1, Registrar General, Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur, while contending that the petitioner No.1 was dead, pleaded that the petitioner No.2 had been compulsorily retired, and that his challenge against the same as registered in Civil Writ Petition No.3410/2003 had been dismissed on 12.9.2003, and that his statutory appeal on the administrative side of this Court had also met the same fate. Vis-a-vis the petitioner No.3, this respondent averred that his statutory appeal against his removal from service was however then pending. It has been asserted that the action on the administrative side taken against the petitioners No.2 and 3 has been in strict conformity with law and that meanwhile, the respondent No.3 had been transferred out of the districts of Bharatpur and Dholpur and for which there was no basis for any apprehension, as mentioned in the writ petition. While disputing the maintainability of the petition as public interest litigation, in the framework of the facts as presented, it has been averred that the complaints against the respondent No.3 with regard to the recruitment of LDCs had been enquired into and were eventually dropped. That the allegations with regard to the illegal compulsory retirement, removal etc., had been enquired into and found to be misconceived, has been mentioned as well. Apart from reiterating these averments, the respondent No.3, in particular in his affidavit, refuted in specific terms the allegations levelled against him. According to him, several disciplinary proceedings against respondent No.2 had been pending at the time when he had assumed the Office of the District & Sessions Judge, Bharatpur and that the compulsory retirements and removal etc., effected were strictly in accordance with the relevant rules and as demanded by the administrative exigencies. Apart from asserting that the vacancies were filled up from time to time in compliance of the directives to that effect issued by this Court, this respondent also endorsed the validity of the recoveries made. He also denied the allegations based on caste and also disputed the caste of the persons as enumerated in the lists furnished by the petitioners to demonstrate his affinity for them in the matter of recruitment and otherwise.
In this factual backdrop, the learned counsel for the respondents at the threshold have questioned the maintainability of the present proceedings on the ground that the issues involved are service domain. They thus urged that the instant proceeding ought to be rejected in limine. While arguing to the contra, the learned counsel for the petitioners referred in details to the pleaded averments and the documents in support thereof to insist that the same would reveal a series of unabated illegal and motivated steps taken by the respondent No.3 in flagrant abuse of his office, generally impacting on the public interest at large for which interference of this Court is warranted. The learned counsel for the respondent No.3, however, maintained that not only the allegations are baseless, in absence of any proof thereof, the same ought to rejected with exemplary costs. As the fact finding enquiries into the same complaints did not yield any material in support of such allegations and have in fact been closed by this Court on the administrative side, this petition ought to be dismissed, he urged. According to the learned counsel there being no instance of any challenge to the alleged actions of the respondent No.3 by any of the affected persons, no interference at this stage is called for.
Following judgments rendered by the Hon'ble Apex Court as also by this Court have been cited at the bar.
1.State of Bihar & Anr. Vs. Madan Mohan Singh & Ors., AIR 1994 SC 765;
2. Ashok Kumar & Ors. Vs. Chairman, Banking Service Recruitment Board & Ors., (1996) 1 SCC 283;
3. Manohar M.Galani Vs. Ashok N.Advani & Anr., AIR 2000 SC 202;
4. Jitendra Kumar & Ors. Vs. State of Haryana & Anr., (2008) 2 SCC 161.
5. State of Uttaranchal Vs. Balwant Singh Chaufal & Ors., (2010) 3 SCC 402;
6. Girjesh Shrivastava & Ors. Vs. State of Madhya Pradesh & Ors., (2010) 10 SCC 707;
7. Laxman Prasad Sharma & Ors. Vs. District & Sessions Judge, Pratapgarh & Ors., 2005 (3) RDD 103 (Raj.) (DB).
We have carefully considered the pleadings of the parties and other materials available on record. We have analyzed as well the arguments advanced.
To start with, the imputations levelled by the petitioners apparently relate to the year 2003. These are largely general and omnibus in nature and do, in our view, essentially relate to the service domain as thereby, allegedly the respondent No.3 had illegally and arbitrarily compulsorily retired persons from service in his Judgeship, effected recoveries from their pay and allowances, indiscriminately transferred them from one place to the other and filled up vacancies in excess of those existing by handpicking persons of his choice. Noticeably, though the petitioners had accused this respondent of favouring the persons of his caste, he (respondent No.3), in his reply, did categorically deny this allegation and disputed the caste of the persons named in the list of such beneficiaries. Not only the challenge made by the petitioner No.2 against his compulsory retirement before this Court was not entertained on merits, even on the administrative side, enquiries conducted into the complaints did not prove the allegations made herein.
The Hon'ble Apex Court in Girjesh Shrivastava (supra) had held against the maintainability of the public interest petition in service matters, in no uncertain terms. The decision of the Hon'ble Apex Court in Manohar M.Galani (supra) is distinguishable on facts as in that case following the filing of a complaint pertaining to an incident that took place in Dakor Court in the distrit of Kheda in the State of Gujarat, the complainant was subjected to series of criminal cases resulting in his arrest and that of his family members at the behest of the accused, so much so, that a social activist eventually filed a writ petition in public interest before the Gujarat High Court. The High Court directed the Director General of Police to conduct enquiry and submit a report. Several reports were submitted which according to the complainant established his innocence. Disciplinary action was also taken against the judicial officer of that court on the administrative side and while the matter was pending, at that, the accused persons moved the High Court whereupon the complaints against them were quashed and the public interest litigation was also closed. It is in this factual context that the Hon'ble Apex Court held that the High Court could not have throttled the investigation and quashed the proceedings in the manner done and that as it had taken cognizance of the episode and had directed enquiry to be conducted, the termination of the public interest litigation was erroneous. In coming to this conclusion, their Lordships also recorded the consensus of the learned counsel for the parties that the public interest petition ought not to have been closed as done. This decision, in our view, does not lay down any proposition of uniform application to countenance the maintainability of a public interest litigation in service matters and is thus of no avail to the petitioners. The other decisions relied on behalf of the petitioners pertaining to impermissibility of appointments in excess of the vacancies advertised ,in the face of our conclusion on the factual aspects, are also of no decisive significance.
On a totality of the considerations, as enumerated hereinabove, we thus find no persuasive reason to intervene at this distant point of time. The petition lacks substance and is dismissed. No costs.
(Dr. MEENA V. GOMBER),J. (AMITAVA ROY),C.J. Skant/-
All the corrections made in the judgment/order have been incorporated in the judgment/order being emailed.
Shashi Kant Gaur, PA