(Delivered by the Chief Justice):—The petitioner was employed as an Assistant District Health Officer in the Public Health Department of the Madras State and he acted as the Municipal Health Officer at Srivilliputtur from November 1947 till about the middle of May 1948. On complaints against him from the residents of the locality sent to the Director of Public Health and other authorities, there was first an enquiry by the District Health Officer and subsequently by an officer of the Crime Investigation Department. The Government finally referred the matter to the Disciplinary Proceedings Tribunal for an enquiry. The Tribunal called upon the petitioner to show cause against certain charges which included a charge of corruption. The petitioner filed a written statement meeting the charges. The Tribunal proceeded with the enquiry, recorded evidence and submitted its report dated 31st October 1949 to the Government. The Tribunal recommended that the petitioner may be removed from service. Government apparently did not agree that this was a sufficient penalty as, in their opinion, the charges were proved beyond doubt and therefore by order dated 3rd March 1950, dismissed the petitioner from service with effect from 10th March 1950. Against this order of dismissal, the petitioner preferred an appeal to His Excellency the Governor under the Civil Services (Classification and Appeal) Rules. This appeal was rejected on 7th July 1950. The petitioner now seeks for a writ under Art. 226 of the Constitution to quash the orders of Government dated 3rd March 1950 and 7th July 1950.
The learned Counsel for the petitioner attempted to bring the case under Art. 227 of the Constitution under which this Court is given superintendence over all Courts and Tribunals throughout the territories in relation to which it exercises jurisdiction. We have no hesitation whatever in holding that neither the Government nor the Disciplinary Proceedings Tribunal would fall within Art. 227.
The question is whether any interference under Art. 226 will be justified in this case. Under Art. 310(1) of the Constitution, except as expressly provided by the Constitution, every person who is a member of a civil service of the Union and every person who is a member of a civil service of a State holds office during the pleasure of the President or the Governor respectively. Art. 311 lays down two requirements to be fulfilled before a person who is a member of a civil service of a State is dismissed or removed. They are (1) that he shall not be dismissed or removed by an authority subordinate to that by which he was appointed and (2) that he shall not be dismissed or removed or reduced in rank until he has been given a reasonable opportunity to show cause against the action proposed to be taken in regard to him. The proviso exempts the observance of the second requirement in certain circumstances, e.g, where a person is dismissed or removed or reduced in rank on the ground of conduct which has led to his conviction on a criminal charge. Admittedly both these requirements have been fulfilled in the case of the petitioner. He was not dismissed by an authority subordinate to that by which he was appointed. Before he Was dismissed, he was given a reasonable opportunity of showing cause against his dismissal. He was given notice of the charges against him and he was given the opportunity of meeting them. In these circumstances, we fail to see anything which calls for our interference.
It is however contended by learned Counsel for the petitioner that there is another implied requirement that civil servants in the position of the petitioner can be dismissed or removed only for misconduct and at one stage of the argument he even went to the length of contending that in the case of a charge like corruption, the petitioner must have been convicted by a Criminal Court for that offence, or in any event, that this Court must be satisfied in the exercise of criminal appellate jurisdiction so to say, that there was evidence on which a conviction could be supported. We see nothing of this sort laid down in Art. 311 or in any other Article of this Constitution. It is nowhere stated on what ground a civil servant might be dismissed or removed. One can conceive of a dismissal or removal being justified on grounds of inefficiency, in subordination or general reputation of corrupt conduct. The Constitution itself does not give any clue. Learned Counsel wanted to argue from proviso (a) to Cl. (2) of Art. 311 that the ground on which a dismissal could be justified must be akin to a criminal charge. On the other hand, all that that proviso enacts is that even the reasonable opportunity of showing cause need not be given to a person who has been actually convicted on a criminal charge.
Learned Counsel for the petitioner sought to attack the finding of the Disciplinary Proceedings Tribunal on the ground that there were irregularities in the reception of evidence and the conclusions of the Tribunal were based on evidence on which no criminal Court would have convicted the petitioner. Assuming that this complaint its well founded, we do not think that we have jurisdiction to set aside the dismissal of the petitioner. The prescribed proper authority of Government had ample power to dismiss the petitioner if that authority was satisfied that there was reasonable cause for such dismissal. All that had to be done was to afford a reasonable opportunity to him to show cause against the action proposed to be taken in regard to him.
Learned Counsel for the petitioner also contended that the appeal was not properly disposed of because it was disposed of not by the Governor personally but by the Secretary to the Government, Public Health Department. Here again we should mention that the petitioner is not entitled under any statute or any statutory rule to a right of appeal. The Governor to whom an appeal is preferred is not a Tribunal subject to the Superintendence of this Court. The fact that rules are made to safeguard the rights of civil servants in matters of disciplinary action does not mean that this Court has jurisdiction to quash orders of Government dismissing a civil servant because one or other of the rules has been contravened. So far as there is no contravention of Art. 311 of the Constitution which corresponds to the provisions of S. 240 of the Government of India Act, 1935, this Court would have no jurisdiction to quash an order of dismissal by the Government.
The decision in Lord Leconfield v. Thornley(1) was relied on and much time occupied with reading passages from the speeches of the noble Lords in that case. That case has no bearing whatever on the questions which arise in this case, because it was found by the House of Lords in that case that the office of a clerk of the Peace of the Country was an office held during good behaviour; that is to say, that it was a freehold office and that the Local Government Act of 1888 did not change the tenure into a tenure of pleasure. Obviously, different considerations would prevail in the case of a freehold office which would not apply to the case of a tenure at pleasure as is the case of a civil servant of the State in the position of the petitioner.
The application is dismissed.
N.R.R