M.C. Mittal vs State of Madhya Pradesh

Hon''ble Shri Justice Rajendra Menon

Challenging the order dated 23-02-2006, passed by the Under Secretary to the Govt. of M.P, rejecting the appeal, the petitioner has filed this writ petition. The case has a chequered history and therefore, it is necessary to indicate certain factual background, By the order impugned which has been passed by the appellate authority, the appellate authority has modified the order of punishment imposed upon the petitioner on 01-06-2002, by which initially petitioner''s services were terminated after conducting a departmental inquiry against him. By the impugned order passed by the Appellate Authority the punishment of termination from service has been modified to that of compulsory retirement and challenge is now made only to the order of the appellate authority.

Initially challenging the termination order dated 01-06-2002, the petitioner approached this court by filing two writ petitions, they were W.P.No.3757/2003 and W.P.No.26568/2003. In these writ petitions the petitioner challenged his termination and various other action taken against him for transferring him, not paying his salary and treating certain service period as dies non.

It was the case of the petitioner in the earlier petitions i.e. W.P.No.3757/2003 and W.P.No.26568/2003 that the petitioner was appointed as a Training Officer in Industrial Training Institute, Koni Bilaspur. He was transferred from the said place to Balaghat vide order dated 14-05-1994. He was relieved on 31-07-1995. It was alleged that he did not join on the transferred place for a period of more than 2 years, 9 months and 7 days. On the allegation of non joining on the transferred place for the period as indicated herein above, a charge sheet was issued to the petitioner on 06-05-1999 and in the said charge sheet two allegations were levelled against the petitioner. The petitioner refuted the allegations levelled in the charge sheet and therefore, a inquiry was ordered and based on the inquiry, petitioner''s services were terminated. When the inquiry into this charge sheet dated 06-05-1999 was pending, two additional charges were framed against the petitioner and additional charge sheet was issued to him on 26-07-2000 and the termination and inquiry was based on the allegations proved with regard to all the 4 charges. As indicaterd hereinabove, after departmental inquiry petitioner''s services were terminated and the petitioner challenged his termination in the writ petitions as indicated herein above. In the said writ petition apart from taking various grounds, two grounds raised by the petitioner were that the Director in the Directorate of the Employment and Training was the appointing authority of the petitioner and the departmental inquiry initiated by the Joint Director is unsustainable. It was also pointed out by the petitioner in the earlier writ petition that the termination of service of the petitioner by an officer subordinate to the Director is unsustainable. Both these grounds were rejected in the earlier writ petition and the termination was found to be proper. However, after dismissal of the writ petition on 14-07-2004 vide Annexure R-1 as the appellate authority has again modified the punishment order, the petitioner is before this court.

During the course of hearing of this writ petition, the petitioner challenged the order of the appellate authority again on the same grounds on which the original order of termination dated 01-06-2002 was challenged by him in the earlier writ petition on the same ground with regard to the Joint Director being incompetent to issue charge sheet, termination being by a subordinate authority and various other procedural irregularity in the inquiry are raised again in this writ petition. Apart from the ground that the punishment is too disproportionate, all the grounds as are raised in this writ petition have been already considered by this court and rejected vide order Annexure R-1 dated 14-07-2004. If the order passed by this court in the earlier writ petition is taken note of and the findings recorded in the said order from paras-5 onwards are considered, it would be seen that this court has held that the Joint Director was competent to issue charge sheet to the petitioner and termination is also by the competent authority and similar grounds raised by the petitioner have already been rejected. With regard to question of termination being illegal on the ground of punishment being highly disproportionate, similar prayer has been considered and is rejected, and in view of the fact that the grounds raised by the petitioner in this writ petition particularly the ground with regard to the charge sheet being issued by the incompetent person and the punishment imposed by incompetent person is already considered and rejected by this court on 14-07-2004 in W.P.No. 3757/2003, no further indulgence into the matter is called for. The order passed in the earlier writ petitions have attained finality and merely because after dismissal of these writ petitions, the appellate authority has modified the order of punishment, no fresh right accrues to the petitioner to challenge the action on the same grounds, which were already considered and rejected by this court in the earlier writ petitions. Accordingly in the facts and circumstances of the case, finding no case for interference, the petition stands dismissed.