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13. The first part of the contention of the learned Advocate for the appellant is that when the authorities found that the plaintiff had disobeyed their orders of joining his duties in a clerical post, they should have framed a charge and held a departmental enquiry. In this connection reference may be made to Rule 148(3) of the Indian Railway Establishment Code, which lays down that "(3) Other (non-pensionable) Railway Servants. The service of other (non-pensionable) railway servants shall be liable to termination on notice on either side for the periods shown below......"

"Under Rule 148(3)(d), Indian Railway Establishment Code the Railway Administration are entitled to terminate the tenure of service of any permanent non-gazetted employee, if they choose to do so, by merely giving a month's notice or a month's pay in lieu of notice and so may an employee belonging to that class relinquish his employment upon giving a similar notice. In case of a termination of service under the Rule by the Railway Administration, no question of any penalty or punishment is involved."

Our attention was drawn to another decision of the same High Court in Fakir Chandra Chiki v. S. Chakravarti, where the validity of Rule 148(3) and Rule 1702 of the Railway Establishment Code fell to be considered. In that case the petitioner who was a servant of the East Indian Railway and had been confirmed in the post of an Assistant Foreman, was taken over by the Government of India. He proceeded on sick leave and the Workshop Medical Officer declared him physically unfit as in his opinion he was not likely to be physically fit enough to resume his work on the expiry of his leave. The petitioner protested and applied to the Authorities stating that he could not be discharged summarily without being granted an opportunity of being heard in respect of his unfitness. There was neither any intimation given to him nor any formal notice, that he had been discharged from service for physical unfitness. It was under those circumstances their Lordships came to the conclusion that there was nothing in the service agreement which provided that a report by the Medical Officer declaring the employee to be medically unfit would operate as a notice of discharge or a summary dismissal, and that, the proper course in the circumstances of that case was to pass an order in compliance with the provisions of Article 311 of the Constitution. It may be noted that the facts of this case are entirely different and as was held by the Supreme Court in Satish Chandra v. Union of India, , the termination of Services under the terms of the contract agreed upon by the parties would not attract the provisions of Article 311 of the Constitution.

15. The proposition that the right of an employer to terminate the services of an employee either under the terms of the contract and the Rules regulating the service conditions or by holding a departmental enquiry as provided by such rules, where both the powers are vested in him, (sic) finds support from the other decisions relied upon by Mr. Mahendra, the learned Advocate for the respondent. In Priya Gupta v. General Manager, North Eastern, Rly., Gorakhpur, it was held that in a case where a Railway Servant had entered into a contract of service, his services were liable to be terminated not only under the terms of the agreement but also under Rule 148 of the Railway Establishment Code. It may be incidentally observed that Rule 148 was held to be valid and not hit by the provisions of Article 14 of the Constitution as the provisions therein were applicable to all railway servants who formed a well-defined class. Their Lordships went further and observed that even where there was no service agreement entered into by a Railway servant under Rule 143, the Railway Authorities were still competent to terminate his services under Rule 148(3) of the Railway Establishment Code. The petitioner in that case was the General Secretary of the Assam Railway Labourers Association and had absented himself due to some work of the Trade Union on certain dates. His services were terminated by the issue of a notice with immediate effect with one month's pay in lieu of notice.