IN THE PUNJAB AND HARYANA HIGH COURT AT CHANDIGARH CWP No.10457 of 2008 Date of decision: February 10, 2009 Rajpal ... Petitioner Versus State of Haryana & others ... Respondents CORAM : HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE AJAY TEWARI Present : Mr. M.P.S. Mann, Advocate for the petitioner. Mr. Harish Rathee, Sr. DAG, Haryana. *** 1. Whether Reporters of Local Newspapers may be allowed to see the judgment? 2. To be referred to the Reporters or not? 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? AJAY TEWARI, J.(Oral) The petitioner was convicted under Section 279/337 of IPC vide judgment dated 19.09.2001 and thereafter he was reinstated. Subsequently instructions dated 29.03.2006 were issued whereby it was laid down that in view of a decision of this Court in CWP No.4093 of 2004 Rishi Dev versus State of Haryana it had been decided that no driver who had been convicted under Section 304 A would be reinstated into service. Thereafter, show cause notice dated 25.07.2006 was issued to the petitioner asking him why his services should not be terminated and ultimately were actually terminated by order dated 18.03.2008. Learned counsel for the petitioner has contended that firstly there was no question of applying of judgment of Rishi Dev (supra) both on the ground that he had already been CWP No.10457 of 2008 -2- reinstated in service when the judgment was passed and secondly because that judgment also restricts the operation to such drivers who had been convicted under Section 304A whereby as noticed above the petitioner had been convicted under 297/337. Learned counsel for respondents has not been able to justify the action of termination of the petitioner. In the written statement also, the only plea that since the petitioner had been convicted under Section 297/337, his services were liable to be terminated however issuance of Annexure P-3 (supra) have not been disputed. In my opinion, as per instructions Annexure P-3 the services of a person like the petitioner could not have been terminated. It is to be noted that in the impugned order the only thing which has been mentioned was that the petitioner was not able to establish his innocence and it was further recorded that he had caused an accident by driving his vehicle rashly. Therefore, keeping him in service is not in public interest. Even in the impugned order no reference was made to the instructions Annexure P-3. In my opinion, the order is unsustainable since neither the petitioner was convicted under Section 304A nor any previous history of rash driving was considered in the punishment order. In the circumstances, the order dated 14.05.2008 is set aside and respondents are directed to reinstate the petitioner CWP No.10457 of 2008 -3- in service with all consequential benefits. Consequently, this writ petition is allowed. February 10, 2009 (AJAY TEWARI) sonia/ashish JUDGE