Shri Vidya Vikas Kelavani Trust and Others vs Ghanshyambhai Marghabhai Patel and Another

The petitioners are original defendants Nos. 1 to 4. Petitioner No. 1 is a Trust, and other petitioners are its Trustees. Respondent No. 1 is the original plaintiff. He is a primary teacher. Since he is also a trustee petitioner No. 1-Trust, he has been added as original defendant No. 5 (Respondent No. 2 in this petition), to avoid legal technicalities.

There is no dispute that plaintiff-respondent No. 1 is primary teacher of the school run by petitioners No. 1-Trust. The petitioner-Trust appears to have given show-cause notice dated 1st December, 1982 for holding departmental inquiry against the plaintiff-respondent No. 1 for the delinquencies alleged against him in the said notice, with which we are not concerned at this stage.

Having received the show-cause notice, respondent No. 1 rushed to the Court and filed a suit, being Civil Suit No. 16 of 1983, in the Court of the learned Second Joint Civil Judge, Senior Division, Baroda, and obtained interim order of status quo against his intended dismissal. It also appears that during the said period, nine other primary teachers also filed their respective suits in the said Court against the petitioner-Trust, and they also obtained same interim orders on application Ex. 5. The learned trial Judge grouped all the 10 civil suits and heard application Ex. 5, and confirmed the ad interim relief granted by him after hearing both the parties. The learned trial Judge has given his detailed judgment on 30th November, 1983 (Ex. ''A'' to the petition).

Being dissatisfied with the said judgment and order, the petitioners herein filed an appeal, being Misc. Civil Appeal No. 31 of 1984, in the Court of the learned Extra Assistant Judge, Vadodara, who, by his judgment and order dated 29th April, 1985 (Annex. ''B'' to the petition) was pleased to dismiss the same. The petitioners have, therefore, filed this petition under Art. 227 of the Constitution of India challenging the decisions of the both the Courts below.

It appears from the judgments of the Courts below that there was a strong prima facie case in favour of the respective plaintiffs and therefore, they passed orders continuing the interim reliefs till the disposal of the suits. In this petition I am not concerned with the interim reliefs granted by the Courts below in other suits, because in some cases the disputes appear to have been compromised. Suffice it to say that so far as Civil Suit No. 16 of 1983 of respondent No. 1 herein is concerned, it was a suit against the show-cause notice dated 1st December, 1982 whereby the petitioners herein wanted to institute departmental proceedings against him, and the Courts below have passed interim orders preventing the petitioners from dismissing respondent No. 1 from service.

Mr. R. D. Vyas, learned Advocate for the petitioners, has raised the following contentions before me :

(1) The suit filed by respondent No. 1 against the show-cause notice was premature, and no relief could be granted by the Courts below to prevent the petitioners from taking proposed action against him.

(2) Under the permission granted by the trial Court, the petitioner-Trust has held inquiry and passed order of dismissal of the respondent-plaintiff. However, on account of the interim order of injunction, the petitioners have not implemented the said order of dismissal against him. Thus, the interim order is interfered with the domestic jurisdiction of the petitioners and the same, therefore, requires to be vacated.

The contention of Mr. Vyas that where show-cause notice, if given by the employer having jurisdiction, does not give any cause of action to the employee, and in any case, such a show-cause notice cannot be said to cause any irreparable injury to the respondent-plaintiff, must be accepted because every domestic authority has a right to hold an inquiry; in an inquiry the delinquent has all the rights to defend himself. It may be possible that after hearing the delinquent the Departmental Authority might drop the proceedings or exonerate the delinquent from the charges levelled against him. But till the final order is passed and till it is shown that the final order passed is illegal or without jurisdiction is in breach of some mandatory procedure or in breach of principles of natural justice, or on some other valid grounds, it cannot be said that the intended inquiry cannot be held or that such intended inquiry causes irreparable injury to the delinquent to obtain interim orders.

In my opinion, unless it is shown that the departmental authority has no jurisdiction to institute any departmental inquiry or there is any inherent defect in the notice which goes to the root of the jurisdiction, the Civil Court in its prudence should not grant interim injunction restraining the Departmental Authority from holding inquiry against the delinquent because every departmental authority has a right to hold inquiry if its employee has committed any delinquency.

Mr. Vyas has relied upon the decision of this Court in Dharamji Fataji v. State of Gujarat (1985 Guj LH 774), wherein this Court has interfered in an appeal against an order, and has held :

"..... Therefore, ordinarily, when the proceedings before the departmental authority are not terminated it will not be proper for the Civil Court to interfere at an interim stage. At such interim stages the administrative machinery of the Government establishment should be allowed to have its full play and should be allowed to reach the termination of the departmental proceedings and take appropriate action.........."

In the aforesaid view of the matter, the interim relief granted by the Courts below is not justified, and an error apparent on the fact of the record is committed, inasmuch as, it cannot be said that by mere show-cause notice and respondent-plaintiff could be said to have suffered any injury. The appellant Court, though has correctly reproduced the contention of the petitioners in para 6 of its judgment, viz., "The plaintiff''s suit itself is premature and not maintainable. Departmental inquiry is still going on and hence the present appeal be allowed", no specific finding is given, and has merely gone on the theory of prima facie case and balance of convenience. It can, therefore, be said that the appellant Court has committed an error of law as well as fact and its decision is liable to be quashed and set aside.

In the result, the petition is allowed. Interim reliefs granted by the trial court and confirmed by the appellate Court, so far as respondent No. 1 plaintiff is concerned, are hereby set aside. Mr. Vyas has averred that the final order of dismissal has been passed against respondent No. 1 plaintiff. On the request of Mr. Ajmera considering the fact and circumstances of the case, the interim injunction shall continue for two weeks after the receipt of the writ of this Court by the trial Court. However, this order will not affect the right of respondent No. 1-Plaintiff to receive salary and/or suspension allowance in accordance with rules. Rule is made absolute with no order as to costs.

Petition allowed.