SMT.REKHA v. THE STATE OF BIHAR
Case at a glance
Key paragraphs
- Para 77. The District Education Officer, Motihari, Distt- East Champaran. …………… Respondents. For the Petitioners : Sri Rajendra Prasad Singh, Sr. Adv. Dilip Kumar Tewari, Adv. Rajeev Kr. Singh, Adv. Ram Sagar Singh, Adv. Sunil Kr. Singh, Adv. For the State : Braj Kishore Pd. Sinha…
Judgment
CWJC No.17386 of 2008 SMT.REKHA W I T H CWJC No.16490 of 2008 SMT.KAMLESH W I T H CWJC No.16880 of 2008 MD.ABDUL QUDDUS W I T H CWJC No.16449 of 2008 SMT.ASHA W I T H CWJC No.16930 of 2008 RAM NARESH MISHRA W I T H CWJC No.15394 of 2008 SMT.MANORMA Versus
THE STATE OF BIHAR.
The Additional Commissioner-Cum-Secretary, Human Resources Development Department, Govt. of Bihar, Patna.
The Secretary, Arts Culture and Youth Department, Govt. of Bihar, Patna.
The Secretary, Agriculture Department, Govt. of Bihar, Patna.
The Director, Secondary Education, Govt. of Bihar, Patna.
The Regional Deputy Director of Education, Tirhut Division, Muzaffarpur.
The District Education Officer, Motihari, Distt- East Champaran. …………… Respondents. For the Petitioners : Sri Rajendra Prasad Singh, Sr. Adv. Dilip Kumar Tewari, Adv. Rajeev Kr. Singh, Adv. Ram Sagar Singh, Adv. Sunil Kr. Singh, Adv. For the State : Braj Kishore Pd. Sinha, G.P. 3. Rachana, A.C. to G.P.-I, Anjani Kr. Sinha, S.C.20. ----------- 3/ 19/03/2009 Heard learned counsel for the petitioners and learned counsel for the State. 4 In this batch of writ applications the question of law arising for consideration including certain orders of this Court, being common in nature, this Court considers it proper to dispose of this batch of writ applications by a common order. For the sake of convenience this Court shall refer to the facts from C.W.J.C. No.13310/08 and the counter affidavit filed therein on behalf of the respondents. The petitioners were appointed as teaching and non-teaching staff by the erstwhile Managing Committee of the Private Schools and in some cases by the District Education Officer and in yet other cases by the Regional Deputy Director of Education.
The schools in which they were appointed and were working came under the 1st scheme of Project Schools relevant for the year-1981-1982. The State Government decided to take over these schools designated as Project Schools for dissemination of education. Appointments so made was screened by a selection committee and the petitioners continued to discharge duties. A list of the selected candidates was also published by the Regional Deputy Director of Education on 9.3.1983. Their salary was stopped in or about August, 2002 when they were removed by an order dated 19.2.2004. The allegations 5 were that their appointment had been found to be irregular. Several writ applications were filed before this Court challenging the order of termination. The petitioner in C.W.J.C. No.13310/08 was one of the petitioners in C.W.J.C. No.4302/04 (led by C.W.J.C. No.12302 of 2003 and analogous cases). A Bench of this Court by its judgement and order dated 6.7.2005 inter alia noticed a wireless message bearing Memo.
No.208/C/EDN dated 14.4.1987 that all teaching and non-teaching staff appointed by the Managing Committee/District Education Officer in the Project Schools during the period 1981-1982 shall be entitled to the benefit of regular pay-scale without any restriction. The Bench further noticed appointments had been scrutinized by a three-member committee under the chairmanship of the R.D.D.E. having the District Education Officer and the District Inspector of Schools as members thereof. Therefore, it was held that once such a decision had been taken and the procedures for their appointment initially followed was not required to be gone into and it could not be said that the entire exercise of screening and preparation of list of persons entitled to continue in the project schools was an 6 exercise in futility when the matters should have come to an end. The report of the three-member committee was the clinching issue and the orders of termination were quashed.
It appears this batch of writ applications led by C.W.J.C. No.12302 of 2003 covered not only project schools under the 1981-1982 scheme, but also under the 1984-1985 and 1988-1989 schemes. While the State preferred L.P.A. No.1211/05 and analogous appeals, M.J.C. No.2454/05 was filed by the State for modification of the order dated 6.7.2005, as aforesaid. The respondent State in the modification application contended that the judgement and order dated 6.7.2005 of this Court in C.W.J.C. No.12302/03 and analogous cases be confined in its operation to those appointed as teaching and non-teaching staff in the project schools under the 1981-1982 scheme only. This prayer was made specifically in context of C.W.J.C. No.4302/04 out of which C.W.J.C. No.13310/08 arises. The judgement of this Court dated 6.7.2005, therefore, became conclusive and final insofar as those appointed in the project schools of 1981-1982 scheme were concerned as the State itself accepted the legality of their appointments in pursuance of which 7 modification application was allowed to that extent. It appears that L.P.A. No.1211/05 and analogous appeals came to be disposed by a common order dated 22.11.2006. Perhaps, the order dated
26.9.2005 in M.J.C. No.2454/05 was not brought to the attention of the Division Bench. For that reason a general order came to be passed referring the matter to a fresh committee when the impugned order dated
27.5.2008 came to be passed holding that the appointments were illegal and the question of regularization did not arise. Learned counsel for the petitioners in this batch of writ applications submitted that once the issue of those appointed in Project Schools in the 1981-1982 scheme was accepted by the State and attained finality when there was no occasion for the State to question the same in appeal for reason of its own stand in M.J.C. No.2454/05, to re-open the case of the petitioners in the garb of any orders of this Court in L.P.A. No.1211/05, which did not cover their cases makes the impugned order dated 27.5.2008 completely arbitrary insofar as they are concerned. Learned counsel for the State in this context, with reference to the pleadings of the petitioner in paragraph-28 of the writ application dealing with 8 M.J.C. No.2454/05 found it difficult to oppose the prayer of the petitioners when the counter affidavit dealing with the said paragraph of paragraph-17 simply states that it “needs no comment”. The petitioners were terminated service. This Court set aside the order of their termination. The State preferred appeals. It consciously excluded persons like the petitioners appointed under the 1981-1982 project schools scheme from the Appeal. It sought a modification of the original order setting aside the termination orders excluding them. In effect, the State reserved its right to challenge in appeal those pertaining to the other schemes of project schools excluding the 1981-1982 scheme. The issue of appointment made by the Managing Committee or the District Education Officer of those coming under the Project Schools for the 1981- 1982 scheme, therefore, attained finality when the State accepted the legality of the appointments. Once the matter attained finality and the State did not question it in appeal, the respondents cannot be permitted by the impugned order dated 27.5.2008 to do indirectly what they cannot do directly. If the order of this Court in C.W.J.C. No.4302/04 similar analogous applications has attained finality and has not been 9 questioned in appeal, the question of terminating their services by any subsequent orders simply does not arise. The impugned order of termination dated
27.5.2008 is, therefore, set aside as being arbitrary and suffering from non-application of mind insofar as those persons appointed by the Managing Committee or the District Education Officer who came to be appointed in the project schools under the 1981-1982 schemes are concerned. The order is quashed to that extent. As a consequence, the petitioners shall be deemed to have never been terminated from service and are entitled, for all practical purposes, to be considered as having continued in service and shall also be entitled to full salary for the periods in question. Those who are stated to have retired in the meantime shall be entitled to their salary till the date of retirement considering that though they were willing to work they were prevented from discharging duties. The applications stand allowed. KC ( Navin Sinha, J.)
Precedent status how later indexed judgments have treated this case
No known negative treatment found in the Courts & Cases corpus.
This is a result about the indexed corpus, not a finding that the judgment remains good law. Coverage may be incomplete.