IN THE HIGH COURT OF JHARKHAND AT RANCHI
W.P.(S) No. 4319 of 2009
1. Badal Banerjee
2. Ram Nath Banerjee
3. Nagendra Nath Pramanik
4. Gautam Kumar Mukherjee .. ... Petitioners
-V e r s u s -
1. The State of Jharkhand;
2. The Secretary, Water Resource Department, Government of Jharkhand,
Ranchi.
3. The Under Secretary, Water Resource Department, Government of
Jharkhand, Ranchi.
4. The Director, Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation, Water Resource
Department, Government of Jharkhand
5. The Special Land Acquisition Officer, Swarn Rekha Project, Saraikela
Kharsawan.
6. The Special Land Acquisition Officer, Swarn Rekha Project Adityapur,
Jamshedpur.
... ... Respondents
...
CORAM: - HON'BLE MRS. JUSTICE POONAM SRIVASTAV
For the Petitioners : Mr. Amit Sinha, Advocate
Ms. Neeta Krishna, Advocate.
For the Respondents: J.C. to Sr. S.C.-II
03/ 11.07.2011
Heard counsel for the petitioners as well as the State counsel on
behalf of the respondents.
Counter affidavit is on record and the petition is listed for
‘Admission’. As agreed between the respective counsels, the writ petition is
heard finally.
The instant writ petition is preferred challenging the show-cause
dated 13.02.2004, 13.02.2004, 23.02.2004 and 13.02.2004 respectively.
The second prayer is claim of regularisation on the post for which he was
appointed after the termination order is quashed. The assertion on behalf of
the petitioner is that similar benefits have been granted in other cases by
this Court as well as by the Apex Court.
The petitioner nos. 1 and 3 were initially appointed by the
competent authority on the post of Amin and the petitioner nos. 2 and 4 on
the post of Chainman (Zanzeer Wahak). Pursuant to their appointment, the
petitioners joined on 12.08.1988. Their service book was opened and the
petitioners continued to work thereafter for almost 23 years and more. The
contention on behalf of the State for termination is that the appointment of
the petitioners was made by Land Acquisition Officer, the State of
Jharkhand was of the view that the Land Acquisition Officer was not the
competent authority for appointing the petitioner on the aforesaid post as
well as the fact that the procedure for appointment was also not followed.
Similarly situated number of employees were also terminated after serving
for a considerable length of period. The respondents claim that the
termination of the petitioner is because their appointment on the post on
which they were discharging their duty was held to be illegal ab initio. The
respective appointment in respect of all the employees were challenged by
them in separate writ petition including the present one.
Other similar writ petitions have been allowed. The order was
challenged in L.P.A. which was rejected by the Division Bench. Both the
orders were again questioned before the Apex Court. In one of the cases,
the Apex Court namely in Civil Appeal No. 918 of 2008 annexed with the writ
petition, held that the incumbent had worked for a period of ten years and
this length of service was taken into consideration. The Hon’ble Supreme
Court adopted a liberal view and directed the respondents to set aside the
termination order. The Apex Court directed regularisation for the reason that
after putting in such a long period of satisfactory period of service, such
employees cannot be ousted without any rhyme or reason and if at all their
appointment was not by following the procedure of law, the respondents
should have taken steps immediately after the appointment but not after
such length of time, specially when they are no more entitled for a job in any
other Department.
Counsel for the petitioner has also placed reliance on a decision
of this Court in the case of Gopal Singh Vs. State of Jharkhand & Others
reported in 2005(4) JLJR 614 and also in the case reported in 2005(3) JLJR
240. These Judgments have also been affirmed by the Apex Court. The
petitioner is also entitled for the same regularisation and liberal view and
their claim is liable to be considered and the same relief should be granted.
In view of what has been stated above, the writ petition is allowed.
The show-cause dated 13.02.2004, 13.02.2004, 23.02.2004 and 13.02.2004
respectively are hereby quashed.
(Poonam Srivastav, J.)
RC