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1. Whether a public servant is entitled to a writ of mandamus for the payment of salary to him for work done despite the fact that his letter of appointment was forged, fraudulent or an illegal one -- is the significant question in this set of 13 connected writ petitions referred for an authoritative decision to the Full Bench. Equally at issue is some cleavage of judicial opinion on this point within this Court.

2. The broad matrix of relevant facts may be noticed from C.W.J.C. No. 6061 of 1985, (Ram Mohan Mandal v. State of Bihar) with a brief reference to those in C.W.J.C. No. 4813 of 1985, (Rita Mishra v. Director, Primary Education) which now remain for adjudication as the other cases were withdrawn at the close of arguments. It emerges from the pleadings that the erstwhile district of Santhal Praganas was carved into four districts including that of Sahebganj. At the material time in 1981-83 the District Superintendent of Education, Sahebganj was one Shri Bhola Ram to whom detailed reference follows hereinafter. In exercise of the powers under Section 8 of the Bihar Government Elementary Schools (Take Over and Control) Act, 1976 the Government issued notification dated the 15th Dec., 1981 (Annexure A to counter-affidavit) laying down in detail the procedure for selection and appointment of the teachers of an elementary school. Thereby, the power of appointment of elementary school teachers was clearly vested in the District Establishment Committee. The procedure prescribed was that the said committee after going through the prescribed procedure of advertisement, selection, etc., would prepare a list of selected candidates and submit the same to the Regional Deputy Director, who was required to carefully scrutinise the same and forward it to the Divisional Commissioner for his approval. The list of such approved candidates was then required to be sent to the District Superintendent of Education who was to issue the appointment letters strictly according to the serial number of names mentioned in the approved list. In view of the International Handicap Year 1981, by another order 50 per cent of the existing vacancies were earmarked to be filled up by handicapped persons and with certain marginal modifications the prescribed procedure was equally applicable to them. It would appear that there were a very large number of vacancies running into a thousand or more against which the appointments were made. However, later, it came to the notice of the authorities that certain forged and bogus letters of appointment had been engineered on the basis of which some per sons were claiming to have been appointed and were making a demand for the payment of their salaries. A searching enquiry was consequently got conducted which revealed that Shri Bhola Ram, the District Superintendent of Education, Sahebganj, who was the kingpin of a conspiracy, had, in consideration of illegal gratification received, engineered the issuance of innumerable forged, bogus and fraudulent letters of appointment and unauthorised persons were allowed to join the teacher's posts by dubious means. Consequently, the said Bhola Ram was suspended and a criminal case against him for serious offences was registered. Later investigations disclosed the collusion and connivance of other local officers apart from the appointees to the posts and a charge-sheet was submitted also against Shri Gopi Krishna Jha Deputy Inspector of Schools, Sahebganj. Shri Chandra Mohan Singh, Block Education Extension Officer, Pakur. Shri Anandi Lal Foddar, clerk in the office of the District Superintendent of Education, Sahebganj, Shri Nishi Kant Jha, Headmaster, and a number of others for being party and privy to a deep-rooted and wide-ranging criminal conspiracy in the whole transact ion. The said criminal case is apparently yet under trial.

3. The writ petitioners herein belong to the dubious class of the aforesaid appointees to the posts of elementary school teachers. Without even disclosing the date and authority of their letters of appointment, far from placing the same on the record, it is their claim that they joined different schools in pursuance of the purported appointment letter and thereafter started teaching work and receiving salary therefor. It is claimed that the service books of the petitioners were opened under the signature of the Block Education Extension Officer and salary was distributed to them through the State Bank of India by crediting the amount in the account books of the teachers concerned. It is averred that sometime in the month of August-September, 1983 a police case was registered against respondent 4, the District Superintendent of Education of Sahebganj, who secured anticipatory bail from the High Court and several other teachers were also involved who similarly were granted regular or anticipatory bail by the Court of Session or the High Court. Consequent upon the discovery of the conspiracy and the registration of criminal cases the salary of the petitioners was allegedly stopped in October, 1983. The petitioners and others similarly situated represented and even raised an agitation, but it would appear that the salary bills of the petitioners are being withheld. Consequently the present writ petition has been filed primarily claiming a writ of mandamus commanding the respondents to pay the salary to the petitioners for the period for which they have worked prior to the issue of the termination letters of their services. Reliance is placed on a number of interim orders passed by this Court that if the petitioners have worked either under legal or illegal appointment letters, they must nevertheless be paid.

4. In the detailed counter-affidavit filed on behalf of respondent No. 4, the undisputed factual position culminating in the prosecution and the pendency of a criminal trial against Bhola Nath, the then District Superintendent of Education, Sahebganj, and his co-conspirators, is reiterated. The categoric stand taken is that not even one of the five writ petitioners, who have herein joined together, was ever considered or selected by the District Selection Committee or the District Establishment Committee, as the case may be. Not one of their names finds place in any of the selection lists, far from the approved lists at all. It is firmly averred that the mandatory procedures for the appointment of elementary school teachers qua the petitioners far from being adhered to have not even been remotely complied with and consequently, the purported appointments on this score also are wholly unauthorised, illegal and invalid. Equally it is pointed out that the petitioners' names at no stage were considered by the Regional Deputy Director of Education, nor ever approved by the Divisional Commissioner, which was a prerequisite for an appointment. The overall stand of the respondent State, therefore, is that the present petitioners were equally colluding or conniving in the wide spread conspiracy and the appointment letters are forged and wholly frivolous and bogus. Consequently, the very appointment letters being not forthcoming and being wholly non est neither any right to work against the posts nor any claim for salary therefor could possibly be maintainable in writ jurisdiction. It is highlighted that the petitioners, far from producing the appointment letters, which are the sheet-anchor of their claim, have neither mentioned the date of the appointment letters, nor the appointing authority, nor the alleged place of posting, which apparently goes to show that the petitioners have no claim. In fact, a frontal challenge thrown to the petitioners in para No. 21 of the counter-affidavit, with a prayer that this Court may direct the petitioners to file their appointment letters and other connected papers on affidavit in support of their claim.

48. It is against the aforesaid pleadings of the respondent State that the learned Advocate-General forcefully contended that despite these averments not one of the petitioners had cared to produce the sheet anchor of their claim, namely, the original letter of appointment along with the writ petition. Only by way of supplementary affidavit in reply to the counter-affidavit, annexure 4/1 purporting to be an indecipherable photostat copy of the alleged letter of appointment was sought to be placed on the record. Despite repeated pinpointing even by the Court, the original was never produced during the long pendency of the writ petition and its hearing. It is somewhat surprising how a photostat copy had been averred to be a true copy but the original thereof is not being traced and is not being produced on the record, despite several demands. Indeed, the learned Advocate-General challenged that the production of the purported original appointment letter of the petitioners herein could only lead to the prosecution of the writ petitioners for forgery far from affording them any relief by way of mandamus for salary. It was pointed out that photostat copy (annexure 4/1) did not bear the signature of the competent authority and the column for such signature was admittedly left blank. The desperate stand on behalf of the petitioners in reply was that the forwarding memo below the letter purported to be signed by one Bhola Ram. Herein again it was pointed out on behalf of the respondent State that annexure 4/1 was dt. 14th Sept., 1983 purporting to direct the petitioners to join on the 25th Sept., 1983. However, in the writ petition the averment in para 8 was that the petitioners who were previously being paid their salary were denied such salary in the month of October, 1983. On behalf of the respondents it was, therefore, highlighted that on the petitioners' own showing there could hardly be any question even of the payment of salary prior to October, 1983 and the whole thing was fraudulent because no question of any payment for the month of October would arise inasmuch as there was little or no possibility of any meaningful services being rendered in the month of September which alone could possibly become payable in October, 1983. The petitioners' own purported document (annexure 4/1) thus seems to run counter to the petitioners' own stand. It is significant to recall that even though at the close of the argument learned counsel for the petitioners had stated that he would file the original letters of appointment on affidavit, no such document was ever filed right from the filing of the writ petition on 12th December, 1985 till the date of rendering the judgment. The inference therefrom seems to be somewhat obvious.