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The question of violation of Article 311(2) has to be examined in two perspectives. Firstly, if it could be held in agreement with the High Court that he should be deemed to have been confirmed in the post to which he was initially appointed, it is plain that terminating his services by a notice of termination simpliciter like the one given in this case, will be violative of the requirement of Article 311(2). On my finding it is manifest that it is not so. He was continuing in the post in an officiating capacity. His services could be terminated by one month's notice simpliciter according to the terms of the employment. Secondly the question to be examined is whether the termination was by way of punishment. Even in the case of a temporary or officiating Government servant his services cannot be terminated by way of punishment casting a stigma on him in violation of the requirement of Article 311(2). This principle is beyond any dispute but the difficulty comes in the application of the said principle from case to case. If a Government servant is compulsorily retired or one who is officiating in a higher post is reverted to his parent cadre, or when the services of an officiating or temporary Government servant are dispensed with by an order of termination simpliciter, then problems arise in finding out whether it is by way of punishment. In different kinds of situation, different views have been expressed. Yet the underlying principle remains the same. One should not forget a practical and reasonable approach to the problem in such cases. Ordinarily and generally, and there may be a few exceptions, any of the three courses indicated above is taken recourse to only if there are some valid reasons for taking the action against the Government servant. If a probe in the matter is allowed to be made in all such cases then curious results are likely to follow. In a given case there may be valid reasons, may be of a serious kind, which led the authorities concerned to adopt one course or the other as the facts of a particular case demanded. If one were to say in all such cases that the action has been taken by way of punishment then the natural corollary to this would be that such action could be taken if there was no such reason in the background of the action. Then the argument advanced is that the action was wholly arbitrary, mala fide and capricious and, therefore, it was violative of Article 16 of the Constitution. Where to draw the line in such cases? Ordinarily and generally the rule laid down in most of the cases by this Court is that you have to look to the order on the face of it and find whether it casts any stigma on the Government servant. In such a case there is no presumption that the order is arbitrary or mala fide unless a very strong case is made out and proved by the Government servant who challenges such an order. The Government is on the horns of the dilemma in such a situation. If the reasons are disclosed, then it is said that the order of the Government was passed by way of punishment. If it does not disclose the reasons, then the argument is that it is arbitrary and violative of Article

The law, it seems to me, is that where the services of a temporary Government servant or a probationer Government servant are terminated by an order which does not ex facie disclose any stigma or penal consequences against the Government servant and is merely a termination order simpliciter, there is no case ordinarily for assuming that it is anything but what it purports to be. Where, however, the order discloses on the face of it that a stigma is cast on the Government servant or that it visits him with penal consequences, then plainly the case is one of punishment. There may still be another kind of case where although the termination of service is intended by way of punishment, the order is framed as a termination simpliciter. In such a case, if the Government servant is able to establish by material on the record that the order is in fact passed by way of punishment, the innocence of the language in which the order is framed will not protect it if the procedural safeguards contemplated by Article 311(2) of the Constitution have not been satisfied. In a given case, the Government servant may succeed in making out a prima facie case that the order was by way of punishment but an attempt to rebut the case by the authorities may necessitate sending for the official records for the purpose of determining the truth. It is in such a case generally that the official records may be called for by the Court. It is not open to the Court to send for the official records on a mere allegation by the Government servant that the order is by way of punishment. For unless there is material on the record before the Court in support of that allegation, an attempt by the Court to find out from the record whether the termination of service is based on the unsuitability of the Government servant in relation to the post held by him or is in reality an order by way of punishment will in effect be an unwarranted attempt to delve into the official records for the purpose of determining the nature of the order on the basis of a mere allegation of the Government servant. On a sufficient case being made out on the merits before the Court by the Government servant it is open to the Court to resort to scrutiny of the official records for the purpose of verifying the truth. I am unable to see why the Court should decline to peruse the official records in an appropriate case and why, where considerations of privilege and confidentiality do not suffer, the information set forth in the records should not be made available to the Government servant. The mere possibility that the official records could confirm what the Government servant had set out to prove and prima facie had, indeed, proved should not shut out disclosure of the information.

What I say here in no way detracts from what this Court has laid down in State of U.P. v. Ram Chandra Trivadi.(1) The Court did deprecate there the act of the High Court in probing into the departmental correspondence that passed between the superiors of the Government servant for the purpose of determining whether the impugned order was passed by way of punishment. But it does not appear from the facts recited in that case that the Government servant had made out any case that the impugned order had been made by way of punishment and that on the claim being disputed by the State it was necessary to ascertain whether the case sought to be proved by the Government servant stood rebutted or confirmed by the departmental correspondence. I am unable to spell out from the judgment any absolute rule enunciated by this Court that where the order terminating the services of a temporary or a probationer Government servant is ex facie an order of termination simpliciter, the Government servant is barred from establishing that it is in fact an order by way of punishment, and that on the Government servant succeeding in establishing it to be so the court is prohibited from examining the official records for the purpose of verifying the true position.

The question of scrutinising the official records arises where a government servant is entitled to show that although the order impugned by him purports to be an order of termination simpliciter it is in fact an order made by way of punishment. In regard to that right this Court specifically referred in Ram Chandra Trivedi (supra) to the decisions in Union of India & Ors. v. R. S. Dhaba and R. S. Sial v. The State of U.P. & Ors.(2) with approval and observed :-

"The form of the order, however, is not conclusive to its true nature. The entirety of circumstances preceding or attendant on the impugned order must be examined by the court and the overriding test will always be whether the misconduct is a mere motive or is the very foundation of the order."