Raghbir Singh vs Punjab State and Another

Ranjit Singh, J.—Raghbir Singh has filed this appeal before this Court being aggrieved against the judgement and decree passed by the Trial Court as well as by the first Appellate Court.

Raghbir Singh was working as a Conductor in Punjab Roadways, Pathankot. His services were terminated on 7.7.1983. He filed an appeal against the same, which was dismissed on 14.11.1983. The appellant accordingly filed a suit for challenging the order of his dismissal and against the order dismissing his departmental appeal.

The appellant was appointed as Conductor on 6.6.1981 and worked till the time he was removed from service on 7.7.1983, as already noticed. The record would show that the bus being conducted by the appellant was checked by Tarsem Lal, Chief Inspector and Tarlochan Singh, Inspector, who appeared to make statement before the Enquiry Officer to the effect that the bus was checked on 13.8.1982, when they found four persons travelling from Pathankot to Jugial without tickets from whom the appellant, had charged 95 Paise per passenger but had not issued them tickets. One passenger was found without ticket who was travelling from Adh Khui to Jugial. The appellant had charged 40 paise as fare from this passenger but had not issued him a ticket. Unpunched tickets of equal amount were obtained from the appellant-Conductor. The Conductor, at that time, had allegedly excited the passengers to quarrel and had tried to take back the unpunched tickets from them. This statement given by Tarsem Lal, Chief Inspector, was corroborated by Tarlochan Singh, Inspector. Accordingly, the order of termination was passed on the basis of this enquiry so held.

Having failed in his appeal, the appellant filed a suit. The defendant appeared and contested the suit. Preliminary objection was raised that no notice was served u/s 80 C.P.C. Suit was also stated to be bad for non joinder of necessary party. Otherwise, it was pleaded that the order passed was perfectly legal and valid. The suit was tried on the following issues:

Whether the suit is bad for want of notice u/s 80 CPC? OPD

Whether the impugned order dated 7.7.83 is illegal, null and void and in violation of service rules as alleged? OPP

Relief.

On behalf of the appellant, primarily two grounds are pressed. It is first contended that none of the passenger was examined as a witness and accordingly, it can not be said that the allegation of passengers being travelling without ticket was made out. From the enquiry, it is apparent that there were two charges against the appellant, out of which one, as already noticed, related to 13.8.1982 and another was to 4.9.1982, when he had allegedly misappropriated an amount of Rs. 8.95P as he had collected fare from five passengers travelling from Pathankot to Phangtoli without issuing tickets. The issue whether the passengers were required to be examined as witnesses has not been seriously pressed by learned Counsel for the appellant during arguments. He, however, has advanced his submission on somewhat different lines. It is conceded that there may not be any necessity to examine the passengers as witness but the counsel would still say that atleast the witnesses who were examined must bring out some evidence to say that there were some passengers who travelled without tickets and that some money was charged from them. In the absence of this evidence, the counsel would contend that it would still remain a case of no evidence.

Apparently, this line of submission is made without seeing what is the evidence given by the Inspectors, who had appeared to depose. Both the Inspectors have corroborated each other to this an extent that some of the passengers were found travelling without tickets. They had not been issued tickets but money had been charged from them. It is also brought out that they were issued unpunched tickets. In this background to say that there is no evidence to contend that the passengers were travelling without tickets, can not be accepted. Even otherwise, the Hon''ble Supreme Court in State of Haryana v. Rattan Singh 1977 (2) SLR 750, has held that when the Inspector was examined as a witness then it would be a case of some evidence and not the case where there is no evidence. It is also noticed in this case that the sufficiency of evidence cannot be gone into and since there was some evidence, it would not be appropriate to interfere in the impugned order on the ground that all the passengers having been not examined. Accordingly, the submissions made on these lines can not be accepted and accordingly are rejected.

Learned Counsel for the appellant would then contend that the appellate authority under the Rules is Director, Transport, whereas his appeal was decided by the Divisional Manager. The defendant in this regard has relied upon a notification dated 22.11.1982 published in the Punjab Government Gazette extra ordinary dated 22.11.1982, whereby General Manager was made the appointing authority in respect of the Conductor as well as the punishing authority. As per this notification, the appellate Authority would be the Divisional Manager in cases of removal from service. The impugned order passed by the Divisional Manager, as such, was held to be not suffering from any want of jurisdiction.

Learned Counsel would say that the rule could not be substituted by issuing gazette notification, and as such, the appellate Authority would continue to be the Director, Transport. It is well understood that the Government has a power to frame rules. After framing the rules, the same are published by way of issuing extra ordinary gazette notification. The record would show that in this case a notification was issued by the State of Punjab, which was published on 22.11.1982. Since it is a gazette notification issued by the Punjab Government for which it would have power, it can not be said that any rule was amended by any administrative or executive instructions. In fact, this would be a deemed amendment of the rules to provide for punishing authority to punish conductors. Accordingly, it can not be said that the order passed was not by the competent authority. In fact, the appellate Authority, as per this gazette notification, would be Divisional Manager, who had dealt with the appeal of the appellant. The substantial question of law arising in this case has rightly been decided.

The Regular Second Appeal is accordingly dismissed.