Bachhittar Singh v. The State of Punjab

Judgment

MenHOLKAH, .J.-This i;: an appeal by special leave against tho judgment of the Punjab High Court 1lismissing the appellant's petition under Art. 226 of the Constitution.

cember l, 1953 he was appointed Assistant Consoli dation Officer. Certain complaints having been The State of Punjab received regarding tampering with official records he was suspended and an enquiry was held against him by the Revenue Secretary of PEPSU Govern ment. As a result of that enquiry the Revenue Secretary dismissed him by order dated August 30, 1956; on the ground that the appellant was not above board and was not fit to be retained in service. This order was duly communicated to the appellant. Thereupon the appellant preferred an appeal before the State Government.

It would appear that he had submitted an advance copy of his appeal to the Revenue Minis ter of PEPSU who called for the records of the case immediately. After perusing them he wrote on the file that the charges against the apptillant were serious and that they were proved. He also observed that it was necessary to stop the evil with a strong hand. He, however, expressed the opinion that as the appellant was a refugee and had a large family to snpport. his dismissal would be too hard and that instead of dismissing him outright he should be reverted to his original post of qanungo and warned that if he does not behave properly in future he will be dealt with severely. On the next day the State of PEPSU merged in the State of Punjab.

According to the appellant the aforesaid re marks amount to an order of the State Government and that they were orally communicated to him by the Hevenue Minister. This is denied on behalf of the State. It is, however, common ground that the aforesaid remarks or order, whatever they be, were never comwunicated officially to the appellant.

After the merger of PEPSU with the State of Minister of Punjab, Mr.Darbara Singh. On Decem ber 1/4, 1956, Mr. Darbara Singh remarked on the

'he Stal< of PunJalJ filo "Scrio11; charges have boon proved by tho Revenue Secrot;1r.Y' and Shri Bachhittar Singh was dismissed. I wou lei. like tho Secretary i/c to clisc11ss the case personally on 5th December, 19.5G." Then on April 2/8, 1957 tho Minister noted on the file "C.M. may kindly arlviso." With this remark thr. file went up before the Chief :llinister, Punjab, who on April lfi/18, 19;ii, passed an order, the conclu ding portion of whfoh rearls thus :

"Having regard to tho gravity of the charges proved against this offici<d, I am or definitely the opinion that his dismissal from service is a correct punishment and no leniency should he shown to him merely ')n the ground of his being a displaced person or having a large family to support. In• the circumstances, the order of dismissal should

stand.'' This order was communicated to the appdlant on May l, 1957. Thereafter he preferred a pPtition under Art. 226 of the Constitution which, as already stated, was di8missed by the Punjab High Court.

The validity of the order of tho Revenue Secretary dismissing the appellant was not challen ged before us. The point urged hcforn us is that the order of the Revonun :'lfinister of the PEPS\; having reduced the punishment from dismissal to reversion, tho Chief Minist"r of Punjab could not sit in review over that order and set it aside. Two grounds arti urged in Aupport of this point. fhc first is t.hat the order of tho Revenue ,\finister of PEPSU was the ordor of the State Government and was not open to review. The second ground is that iu any case it was not within the competence of the Chief Minister of Punjab to doal with tl:\e matter Revenue Minister.

Before we deal with the grounds we may state that the High Court was of the opinion that proceedings taken against the appellant were made up of two parts : (a) the enquiry (which involved a decision of the question whether the allegations made against the appellant were true or not) and (b) taking action (i.e., in case the allegations were found to be true, whether the appellant ·should be punished or not and if so in what manner.) Accord ing to the High Court the first point involved a decision on the evidence and may in its nature be described as judicial while the latter was purely an administrative decision and that in so far as this was concerned there was no reason why the State Governrn,ent was incompetent to change its decision "if it thought ,administratively advisable to do so". We 'canno't accept the view taken by the High Court regarding the nature of what it calls the second part of the proceedings. Depart mental procee.dings .taken against a .Government ser vant are not divisible in the sense "in which the High Court understands them to be. There is just one continuous proceeding though there are two stages in it. The first is coming to a conclusion on the evidence as to whether the charges alleged against the Government servant are established or not and the second is reached only if it is found that they are so established. That stage deals with the action to be taken against the Government servant concer- . ned. The High Court aocepts that the first stage is a judicial proceeding and ind\)ed it must be so be cause charges have to be fr;uned, notice has to be given and .the person concerned has to be given an opportunity of being heard. Even so far as the second stage is concerned Art. 311 (2) of the Consti tution requires a notice to be given to the person concerned as also an opportunity of being heard. Therefore, this stage of thll proceeding is no less judi oial than the earlier "one. Consequently any action decided to be taken against a Government servant found guilty of misconduct is a judicial order :tnd as such it cannot be varied at the will of tho autho rity who is empowered to impose the punishment. Indeed, the very object with which notice is requi red to be given on the question of punishment is to ensure that it will be such a.s would be justified upon t.he charges established and upon the other attendant circumstances of the oase. It is thus wholly erroneous to characterise the taking of action against a person found guilty of any char ge at a departmental enquiry as an administrative order.

What we have now to consider is the effect of tho note recorded by the Revenue '.\iinistcr of PEPSU upon the file. We will assume for the purpose of this case that it i,i an order. Even so the question is whether it can be regarded as the order of the State Gov<•rnment which alone, as admitted by the appellant, was competent to hear and decide il-n appeal from the order of the Revenue Seoretary. Art. 166( I) of the Constitution requires that all executive act ion of the Government of a State shall be exprei;aed in the namo of the Governor. Clause (2) of Art. 166 provides for the authentication of orders and other instruments made and executed in the name of the Governor. Clause ( :l) of that Article enables the Governor to make rules for the more convenient transaction of tho buHiness of the Government and for the alloca tion among the ~¹inistcrs of the said business. 'What the appellant c1llle an ordor of tho State Govern ment is admittedly not expressed to be in the n11me of the Governor. But with that point we shall deal later. What we must first ascertain is whether the order of the Revenue l\Iinister is an order of the State Government i.e., of the Governor. In this connection we may refer tor. 25 of the Rules of Business of the Government of PEPSU which reads thus:

"Except as otherwise provided by any other Rule, cases shall ordinarily be disposed of by or under the authority of the Minister incharge who may by means of standing orders give such directions as he thinks fit for the disposal of cases in the Department. Copies of such standing orders shall be sent to the

Rajpramukh and the Chief Minister."

According to learned counsel for the appellant his appeal pert3ins to the department which was in charge of the Revenue Minister and, therefore, he could deal with it. His decision and order would according to him, be the decision and order of the State Geverriment. On behalf of the State reliance was, however, placed on r. 34 which required cer· tain classes. of cases to be submitted to the Raj. pramukh and the Chief Minister before the issue of orders. But it was conceded during the course of the argument that a case of the kind before us does not fall within that rule. No other provision bear ing on the point having been brought to our notice we would, therefore, hold that the Revenue Minis· ter could make an order on behalf of the State Government.

The question, therefore, is whether he did in fact make such an order. Merely writing something on the file does not amount to an order. Before something amounts to an order of the State Govern ment two things are necessary. The order has to be expressed in the name of the Governor as required by cl. (1) of Art. 166 and then it has to be com municated. As already indicated, no formal order modifying the decision of the Revenue Secretary was ever made. Until such an order is drawn up the State Government cannot, in our opinion, be Aa along as the matter rosted withhim the Revenue Minister could well sooro out his remarks o; minutes

Tit, ·¹.ie of¹:•nj•b on the file and write fresh ones.

The business of State is a complicated one and has necessarily to be conducted th1\mgh the agency of a large number of officials and authorities. The constitution, therefore, . requires and so did the Rules of Ilusiness framed by the Rajpramukh of PEPSU provide, that the action must be taken by the authority concerned in the name of the Raj pramukh. It is not till this formality is observed that tho action can lie regarded as that of the State or here, by tho Rajpramukh. We may further ob serve thiit, constitutionally speaking, the Minister is no more than an adviser and that the head of the State, the Governor or Rajpramukh, * is to act with thl'I aid and advil'e of his Council of Mir.1isters. There fore, until such adviee is accepted by the Govemor whatever the Minister or tho Council of .\Iinisters may say in regard to a particular matter does not become the action of the State until the advice of the Council of Ministern is accepted or deemed to be a.cct>pted by the Head of the State. Indeed, it is possible that after exprc88ing one opinion a.bout a particular matter at a particular stage a Minister or the Council of Ministers mi>y express quite a different opinion, one which may be completely opposed to the earlier opinion. Whioh of them can be regarded as the 'order' of the ~tate Government? Therefore to make the opinion amount to a decision of tbe Government it must be communicated to tho person concerned. In this connection we may quote the following from the judgment of this Court in the SW.re of Punjab v. Sodhi Snkhdev Singh ( ')-

"}Ir. Gopal Singh attempted to argue that before the final order was passed the Council dent's representation and to reinstate him, and that, according to him, the respondent seeks .to prove by calling the two original orders. We are unable to understand this argument. Even if the Council of Ministers had provisionally decided to reinstate the res pondent that would not prevent the Council from reconsidering the matter and coming to a contrary conclusion later on, until a final decision is reached by them and is communica ted to the Rajpramukh in the form of advice and acted upon by him by issuing an order in

that behalf to the respondent."

Thus it is of the essence that the order has to be communicated to the person who would be affected by that order before the State and that person can be bound by that order. For, until the order is com municated to the person affected by it, it would be open to the Council of . Ministers to consider the matter over and over ag~in and, therefore, till its communication the order cannot be regarded as anything more than provisional in character.

We are, therefore, of the opinion that the re marks or the order of the Revenue Minister, PEPSU are of no avail to the appellant.

Now as regards the next contention,· Learned counsel for the appellant contends that since his appeal was not decided by the Revenue Minister of Punjab, Mr. Darbara Singh but by the Chief Minister Mr. Pratap Singh Kairon, who had no jurisdiction to deal with it, the appeal must be dee med to he still pending. In this conneetion he relied upon r. 18 of the Rules of Business framed by the Governor of Punjab which corresponds to r. 25 of the PEPSU rules, which reads thus:

"Except as otherwise provided by any other Rule, cases shall ordinarlly be disposed in-chargo who may, by means of standing orders, give such directions as ho thinks fit for the dispos:>l of cases in the Department. Copies of such standing ordern shall be sent to the

Chief ;\Iinister and the Governor."

.!\ow, unquestionably the matter here did pertain to the portfolio of the Revenue Minister. But it was he himself who, aft-Or seeing the fi!<., submitted it to the Chief '.\Iinister for advice. Leiirned counsel, however, contends that tho Chief Minister could, therefore, only give him advice and not usurp tho jurisdiction of the Revenue Minister and decide the case himself. But this argument ignores r .28 (I) of the Punjab Rules of Business, the relevant portions of which run thus:

"28 (I) The following classes of cases shill I be submitted to the Chief Minister be fore tho issue of orders :x x x

(ii) Cases raising questions of policy and cases of administrative importance not alroady covored by the Schedulo. x x x

(vii) Proposals for the prosecutions, dis missal, removal or compulsory retire ment of any gazetted officer.

x X,

(xix) Such other cases or classes of cases as the chief Minister may consider

necessary.

The learned Advocate-General contends that the case would be covered by every one of these clauses. In our opinion, cl.( vii) cannot assist him because it is not the contention of the State that the appellant is a gazetted officer. We, however, think that cl. (ii) would certainly entitle the Chief Minister to pass an order of the kind which he has made here. The question to be considered was whether though grave charges had been proved against an official he should be removed from service forthwith or merely reduced in rank. That unquestionably raises a question of policy which would affect many cases all and the departments of the State.The Chief Minister would, therefore, have been within his rights to call up the file of his own accord and pass orders thereon. Of course, the rule does riot say that the Chief Minister would be entitled to pass orders but when it says that he is entitled to call for the file before the issue of orders it clearly im plies that he has a right to interfere and make such order as he thinks appropriate. ·Finally there is cl.

(xix) which confers a wide discretion upon the Chief Minister to call for an}' file and deal with it himself. Apart from that we may refer to r. 4 of the Rules of Business of the Punjab Government, which reads thus:

"The Council shall be collectively res ponsible for all executive orders issued in the name of the Governor in accordance with these Rules whether such orders are autho rised by an individual Min~ater on a matter pertaining to his portfolio or as the result of discussion at a meeting of the Council, or · howsoever otherwise."

Thus the order passed by the Chief Minister, even though it is on a m.atter pertaining to the portfolio of the Revenue Minister, will be deemed to be an order of the Council of Ministers. So deemed its contents would be the Chief Minister's advice to the Governor, for which the Council of Ministers would be collectively responsible, The action taken thereon in pursuance of r. 8 of the Rules of Business made by the Governor under Art. 166(3) of the Constitution would then be the action of the Government. Horo one of the Under Secretaries to the Government of Punjab informed the appellant by his letter dated

Tru Stak of Punjab !\fay, 1, 1957 that his representation '•had been considered 1tnd rejected", evidently by the State Government. Thh; would show that appropriate action had been taken under the relevant rule.

Tho appeal is thus without substance and is dismissed. In view of the fact that the appellant is a displaced person with heavy responsibilities and with limited or possibly hardly any means we diroct that the costs shall be borntl by the parties concerned.

BHAURAY v.

B. BAIJNATH SINGH