IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA
LPA No.743 of 2009
BHARATI KUMARI , daughter of Sri Kailash Kumar Sah, resident of Kirtan
Bhawan Road, Ward No. 13, P.S.- Madhubani Town, District- Madhubani.
...Petitioner/Appellant
Versus
1. THE STATE OF BIHAR
2. The Principal Secretary, Human Resources Development Department, Govt. of
Bihar, Patna.
3. The Director (Primary) Education, Govt. of Bihar, Patna.
4. The District Magistrate, Madhubani, District- Madhubani.
5. The District Superintendent of Education, Madhubani, District- Madhubani.
6. The Sub-divisional Education Officer, Madhubani, District- Madhubani.
... Respondents / Respondents.
-----------
7. 03.12.2010 Having heard learned counsel for the parties,
this Court is of the considered opinion that even if the
appointment of the appellant-writ petitioner was made on
a contractual basis for a period of 11 months and the
respondents had reserved the right of granting further
extension only after being satisfied with regard to her
performance duty, if her such renewal of contract was
denied on the ground of any allegation, she ought to have
been subjected to a show-cause notice followed by an
enquiry and an order. Apparently, such procedure was
never followed and even if the averments made in
counter affidavit in this appeal is taken into account, all
that would emerges is that some sort of general hearing
was going on in which the appellant-writ petitioner along
with others was also asked to participate. Such procedure
2
of hearing cannot be held to be the compliance of the
principles of natural justice and to that extent we also
agree with the learned counsel for the appellant-writ
petitioner that in view of the certificate issued by the
District Superintendent of Education recording that the
appellant-writ petitioner had satisfactory tenure of
service, there would be hardly any occasion to believe
that the past performance of the writ petitioner was
unsatisfactory.
The question, however, would be that even after
the writ petitioner was made aware of her term being not
extended and her replacement by one Amarendra Das, she did
not choose to implead Amarendra Das as a party in the
connected writ petition and today after almost one and a half
years of his continuation in service, we would not like to
disturb such appointment of Amarendra Das only on the
ground of violation of principles of natural justice.
Learned counsel for the respondent-State,
however, taking into account that the appellant-writ petitioner
was not given any opportunity to defend herself, has fairly
agreed that the non-renewal of the contractual service of the
appellant-writ petitioner will not be treated as a proof of her
3
unsatisfactory service and in fact her such non-renewal
will not be taken to be stigma for her future employment
in any other service. We believe that learned counsel for
the State has very fairly agreed to this aspect because the
District Superintendent of Education has also given
certificate with regard to satisfactory working of the
petitioner in the entire period of 11 months between
1.8.2007 to 30.5.2008.
We would therefore dispose of this appeal
with a finding that non-renewal of the contract of the
appellant-writ petitioner will not stand in her way in
obtaining any future employment.
With the aforementioned observation, this
appeal is disposed of.
(T. Meena Kumari, J.)
(Mihir Kumar Jha, J.)
Kanchan/rishi