Patna High Court
Case Details
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA Civil Writ Jurisdiction Case No.20620 of 2012 ====================================================== 1.Pradeep Kumar Ranjan S/O Chandeshwar Ram Resident Of Village- Murarpatti, Police Station- Nautan, District- Siwan. 2.Savita Kumari W/O Mukesh Kumar Yadav Resident Of Village- Devanchak, Police Station- Nautan, District- Siwan. 3. Md. Hasim S/O Zafar Nat Resident Of Village- Salempur, Police Station & District- Siwan. 4.Tasawar Hussain S/O Late Samsuddin Resident Of Village- Bhukhalchak, Police Station- Bhore, District- Gopalganj. 5.Subhash Yadav @ Subash Yadav S/O Swami Nath Yadav Resident Of Village- Kharauni Tola, Kawati, Police Station- Mirganj, District- Gopalganj. Versus .... .... Petitioner/s 1. The State Of Bihar 2. The Principal Secretary, Human Resources Development Department, Govt. Of Bihar, Patna. 3. The Director (Primary Education), Government Of Bihar At & P.O Patna, District- Patna. 4. The District Magistrate, Siwan At & P.O- Siwan, District- Siwan. 5. The District Education Officer, Siwan At & P.O Siwan, District- Siwan. 6. The District Teachers Appointment Appellate Authority, Siwan. At & P.O Siwan, District- Siwan. 7. The Block Educating Officer, Block Nautan, District- Siwan. 8. The Mukhiya, Gram Panchayat Raj, Murarpatti, Police Station- Nautan, District- Siwan. 9. The Panchayat Secretary, Gram Panchayat Raj Murarpatti, Police Station- Nautan, District- Siwan. 10. Mira Devi W/O Rana Pratap Singh Resident Of Village- Bhagwanpur, Police Station- Nautan, District- Siwan. 11. Pawan Kumar S/O Raghav Singh Resident Of Village- Baraipatti, Police Station- Nautan, District- Siwan. 12. Devendra Kumar Singh S/O Doodhnath Singh Resident Of Village- Baraipatti, Police Station- Nautan, District- Siwan. 13. Sandhya Kumari W/O Ashok Kumar Prasad Resident Of Village- Baraipatti, Police Station- Nautan, District- Siwan. 14. Ramesh Pandit S/O Ram Autar Pandit Resident Of Village- Baraipatti, Police Station- Nautan, District- Siwan. 15. Arvind Kumar Ram S/O Chandrika Ram Resident Of Village- Kilpur (Baniatola), Police Station- Nautan, District- Siwan. 16. Vinita Kumari D/O Janardan Prasad Resident Of Village- Murarpatti, Police Station- Nautan, District- Siwan. 17. Upendra Kumar S/O Dukhi Sah Resident Of Village & Police Station- Nautan, District- Siwan. 18. Kumari Sudha Yadav D/O Basudeo Yadav Resident Of Village- Gaderia, Police Station- Gutki, District- Siwan. .... .... Respondent/s ====================================================== Patna High Court CWJC No.20620 of 2012 (4) dt.30-10-2013 Appearance : For the Petitioner/s : Mr. Uma Kant Shukla, Adv Mr. Shakti Suman Kumar, Adv For the Respondent/s : Ms. Namrta Mishra GP17 For private respondent no.9 : Mr. Basant Kumar Chaudhary, Sr. Adv. ====================================================== CORAM: HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE MIHIR KUMAR JHA ORAL ORDER 4 30-10-2013 Heard Mr. Uma Kant Shukla, learned counsel for the petitioners. No one appears on behalf of either State or private respondents 10 to 18 though Mr. Basant Kumar Chaudhary appears on behalf of private respondent no. 9, the Panchayat Secretary. 2. In this writ application, the petitioners has assailed the two orders passed by the District Teachers Employment Appellate Tribunal, Siwan (hereinafter referred to as the Tribunal) as contained in Annexures-5 and 6.
Legal Reasoning
3. Mr. Uma Kant Shukla, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioners in support of the aforementioned prayer has submitted that the manner in which the Tribunal has disposed of the cases filed by the private respondents by straightway directing the Panchayat to issue appointment letters for them would itself go to show that the Tribunal did not adjudicate any dispute much less had come to the finding that the private respondent were the best candidates of their respective category on merit for being favoured with the 2 Patna High Court CWJC No.20620 of 2012 (4) dt.30-10-2013 appointment letter. 4. In this regard, Mr. Shukla has explained that out of nine persons who have been appointed under the orders of the Tribunal the names of respondent nos. 15, 16 and 18 had not even in the final merit list. He has further submitted that even when the petitioner no. 5 has 83.87 per cent marks as shown in the merit list he has been left out in the process of appointment only on account of impugned order passed by the Tribunal whereas persons who have been appointed including the respondent nos. 10 to 18 have secured much less marks than petitioner no. 5. In this regard he has given a comparative chart of the marks of the petitioners vis a vis respondents which is extracted hereinbelow:- Respondent Marks 69.22% Merit List Sl. No. in application complete Petitioner Name Petitioner Marks 61. 55% Not 1. Pradeep Kumar Ranjan 2. Savita Kumari 62% 3. Md. Hasim O.B.C Trained 4. Tasawar 60.72% 74.11% 5. Subash Yadav 83.87% Merit List Sl. No. Respondent Name. in 10. Mira Devi in Merit list Not merit list Sl. 5, Page-43 Sl. 63 Page-49 Al. 16 Page-46 11. Pawan Kumar 12. Devendra Kr. Singh 13.Kumari Sandhya 14.Ramesh Pandit 62% 60% 68.4% 50.2% 15.Arvind Kumar Ram 16.Vinita Kumari 17. Upendra Kumar 18. Kumari Sudha Yadav not disclosed marks in application not disclosed marks in application 61.11% 60% complete (in form) in merit not list (in complete form) in merit Not list in merit Not list Did not file caste certificate Not in merit list (Marks stated in the application filed before the appellate authority) (Respondent 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 17 are in merit list the rest are not there). " 3 Patna High Court CWJC No.20620 of 2012 (4) dt.30-10-2013 5. It is not in doubt that the Panchayat in question namely, Murarpatti Panchayat there were 14 posts which were required to be filled up out of which 8 posts were for the general and 6 posts were for Urdu. The break up of these 14 posts were given in the roster, wherein, 4 posts were to be filled up from Unreserved Category, 3 posts were to be filled up from the Unreserved Female Category, 2 posts were to be filled up from the Extremely Backward Category, 1 post was to be filled up from the Extremely Backward Female Category, 1 post was to be filled up from the Scheduled Caste Category and 1 post was to be filled up from the Scheduled Caste Female Category, 1 post was to be filled up from the Backward Category and 1 post was to be filled up from the Extremely Backward Female Category. Thus, the roaster enclosed as Annexure-1 has not been controverted by any of the respondents including the official respondents and in fact no counter affidavit has been filed in this case despite the fact that this writ application was filed on 01.11.2012 and notices were directed to be issued to respondent nos. 8 to 18 by order dated 26.11.2012. 6. There is also availability of the valid service report 4 Patna High Court CWJC No.20620 of 2012 (4) dt.30-10-2013 upon respondent nos. 8 to 18 which gets further substantiated in form of appearance filed by respondent nos. 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18 through vakalatnama filed of Mr. Vikash Kumar, Advocate and Mr. Arvind Kumar, Advocate. Let it be noted that on the earlier date when the case was taken up, a prayer has been made on behalf of private respondents sought to be represented by Mr. Basant Kumar Chaudhary who was said to be out of station and the case was accordingly, adjourned for today but today Mr. Basant Kumar Chaudhary having turned up in the Court room has submitted that he does not represent any private respondents and in fact he is only representing the Panchayat Secretary, respondent no. 9. He has further submitted that the Panchayat had no other option but to comply the order of the Tribunal and that is how the order of appointment of the private respondents were issued pursuant to the direction of the Tribunal. 7. First of all this Court is not in a position to accept the submission of Mr. Chaudhary. If the Panchayat had found that such direction of the Tribunal was in teeth of the merit list it was not helpless inasmuch it had to bring the matter to the notice of the authorities including the Collector and the Collector of the district could have taken a decision for 5 Patna High Court CWJC No.20620 of 2012 (4) dt.30-10-2013 assailing the order of Tribunal which in absence of any other forum had to be assailed before this Court. The Mukhiya and Panchayat Secretary of the Panchayat are not supposed to carry out an illegal order or direction of the Tribunal without even questioning them. It is only when the Mukhiya and the Panchayat Secretary would find that the order of the Tribunal is in accordance with law and would require no further judicial review that they are under an obligation to comply the order but when today a submission has been made by Mr. Chaudhary that the Panchayat was helpless in view of the order of the Tribunal, this must be observed that the authorities of Panchayat namely the Mukhiya and Panchayat Secretary also appear to be hand in gloves with the private respondents in appointing such ineligible persons. 8. In this regard, this Court has gone into the merit list produced by the learned counsel for the petitioner as contained in Annexure-3 and the same contains the names of as many as 140 candidates. It is also apparent that after preparation of this final merit list either the counselling was not held or even if held did not lead to issuance of appointment letter and that is how the private respondents had gone to the Tribunal complaining about the non consideration of their appointment 6 Patna High Court CWJC No.20620 of 2012 (4) dt.30-10-2013 despite preparation of the panel. The Tribunal therefore was required to verify itself such claims of private respondents by directing the Panchayat to produce the merit list as also eliciting the fact regarding holding the counselling. The Tribunal in fact had straigthway directed for the distribution of appointment letter to one and all who had filed their cases. The mechanical manner in which the Tribunal had proceeded without even examining as to amongst the applicants had fulfilled the requisite qualification or was covered by the merit list, would only go to show that the Tribunal has virtually acted like a Post-office. This was not supposed to be the role of the Tribunal which is in fact an independent adjudicatory forum. 9. This Court having also perused the copies of complaints of private respondents, which has been brought on record by the petitioners, would find that none of the private respondents had even disclosed their merit position or the date of counselling. Such vague complaints in fact ought to have been not entertained by the Tribunal for want of specific details. The Tribunal was not supposed to bestow favour to one and all who had approached for verifying the claims and the manner in which the Tribunal has approached the whole 7 Patna High Court CWJC No.20620 of 2012 (4) dt.30-10-2013 issue while passing the impugned orders would leave a lot to desire. 10. The resultant injury of such illegal orders of Tribunal has been borne by the petitioners, inasmuch as, even when they appear to be better on merit, none of them have been appointed. Such appointment of the private respondents therefore, cannot be countenanced either in fact or in law specially when none of them have even sought to defend their appointment by filing a counter affidavit after filing of their vakalatnama. 11. In that view of the matter, this Court would quash both the impugned orders as contained in Annexure-5 and 6 so far it relates to private respondent nos. 10 to 18 as also the consequential orders of their appointment dated 09.07.2012 as contained in Annexure-7. This court however must make it clear that it has not quashed the impugned orders or the consequential appointment of Pramod Kumar Verma, Nandan Kumar Singh and Nirmala Dubey who are said to be also applicants before the Tribunal and also appointed on 09.07.2012 but had not joined the post. 12. The Tribunal will now proceed ahead by examining the claim of the petitioners vis a vis private 8 Patna High Court CWJC No.20620 of 2012 (4) dt.30-10-2013 respondent nos. 10 to 18 and would decide the whole issue relating to selection and appointment of teachers of the second phase strictly in accordance with the roaster. If the Tribunal, however, on production of the merit list and the records of the counselling would find that the persons having better merit than the petitioner and private respondents have been ignored, it would not direct for appointment of either the petitioners or private respondents but would leave the matter to be decided by the recruiting unit i.e. the Panchayat. 13. It is, also made clear that in no event any eligible person including the petitioners having higher marks in merit would be left out from being appointed on the post of Panchayat Teacher if the services of the private respondents or anyone else of the same panel is sought to be retained. This exercise, however, must be completed by the Tribunal within a period of six months from the date of receipt of this order so that the Panchayat can take its ultimate decision within a period of next two months. 14. With the aforementioned observation and direction,
Decision
this application is disposed of. Ranjan/- (Mihir Kumar Jha, J) 9