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1. The petitioner Shanti Kusum Das Gupta is an employee of the Oil and Natural Gas Commission (hereinafter referred to as the Commission) which is respondent No 1 in this petition. The petition is directed against an order of the Commission dated 12th March 1968 (Annexure B to the petition.) At the time of the order the petitioner was serving in the Commission in the temporary post of a Deputy Manager to which he had been promoted on probation on an earlier date to which reference will be made presently. By this order his services were replaced at the disposal of the Geology Directorate as Senior Geologist which was a post he occupied in a substantive capacity before the promotion just mentioned. This order is challenged as illegal, void and inoperative. The Commission, as earlier stated, is respondent No. 1 to the petition. Respondents Nos. 2 and 3 who are the only other respondents are respectively the Director of Administration who has signed the order Annexure B and the General Manager under whose orders this office order appears to have been issued. The respondent No. 1 being the principal respondent will be referred to hereinafter as the respondent.

2. The material facts are these. Before the Commission was incorporated by the Oil and Natural Gas Commission Act, 1959 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) it was a Department of the Government of India. While it was such a Department the petitioner was recruited in the Commission on 1-8-1957 as a Senior Geologist in the Scale of Rs. 700-50-1250 and was occupying that post in the Commission at the time the Commission was incorporated. The Act incorporating the Commission came into force on 15-10-1959. Under Section 13 of the Act the employees of the existing organization meaning the Commission before incorporation became the employees of the Commission as incorporated. The petitioner accordingly became such an employee and continued in the post of Senior Geologist. In 1964 it appears that the Commission decided to appoint technical men in managerial (executive) posts. Accordingly by an order dated 28-9-1964 (Annexure A to the petition) six technical men from different Directorates were appointed to the temporary posts of Deputy Managers in the pay scale of Rs. 1100-50-1400. The petitioner was one of them. The appointment under the order Annexure A was besides being stated to be an appointment to a temporary post and until further orders was also stated to be on probation for a period of six months from the date the appointee assumed charge of his appointment. Although there is no subsequent order extending the period of probation there has also not been any order terminating the period of probation or confirming the petitioner in that post. There was in the petition a contention that in the absence of such an order the petitioner must be deemed to have been confirmed but that contention has not been pursued at the time of hearing and Mr. Daru who appears for the petitioner concedes that in law the petitioner continued to be on probation and was on probation on the date the impugned order dated 19-3-1968 was passed. It will be convenient how to set out the terms of the impugned order. It reads as under:-