IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.10224 of 2008 Date of decision: 27.04.2010 Mohammad Farooque ….Petitioner versus State of Haryana and others …Respondents CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN ------ Present: Mr. Adarsh Jain, Advocate, for the petitioner. Mr. Ravi Dutt Sharma, Deputy Advocate General, Haryana, for respondents 1 to 3 and 5. Mr. O.P.Sharma, Advocate, for respondent No.4. ----- 1. Whether reporters of local papers 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? ----- K.Kannan, J (Oral) 1. The petitioner is a Teacher against whom an action was taken for incompetency namely of obtaining very poor percentage of passes from the students who had been sent up for board examination (8th and 10th classes). As required under the provisions of the Haryana School Education Act of 1995, after an enquiry was held and when the management of the school had decided to terminate the services, they had sought for permission with the Director of Education for his sanction. The Director had sanctioned the decision to terminate the services and the management ultimately passed an order terminating the Civil Writ Petition No.10224 of 2008 - 2 - services of the petitioner. The petitioner again preferred an appeal to the Director of School Education, who by the impugned order affirmed the earlier decision terminating his services. The petitioner is in challenge before this Court and contends inter alia that an authority, who had previously granted sanction to the management to terminate the services, could not have examined the case objectively as an Appellate Authority. 2. The learned counsel also refers to a decision of a Division Bench of this Court in Aas Mohd. Versus State of Haryana and others in Civil Writ Petition No.8510 of 2008 where this Court had considered the anomalous situation giving the power of sanction to terminate the services with the same person who had to dispose of the appeal also. The Bench had in that case set aside the order of the Appellate Authority namely of the Director and had directed the letter seeking sanction from the authority to be examined alongside the appeal, simultaneously with further direction for an opportunity to be given to the affected party to make his case. The direction given by the Court gives room to an equally anomalous situation of considering an application for sanction for dismissal by the management to be rendered simultaneously with a decision taken by the management on such sanction and reviewing its own decision as an Appellate Authority. The order of sanction assumes that the authority has exercised his mind and upholds the decision of the management to terminate the services. A decision in an appeal by the authority who has upheld an earlier decision to terminate can only amount to annulling its own decision and would make impossible an objective consideration of the decision of the authority afresh. I do not Civil Writ Petition No.10224 of 2008 - 3 - know how such an exercise is possible, but I am still bound by the decision of the Division Bench and hence, hold that the decision of the Director, which is challenged, is liable to be quashed and the matter remitted to the Director, who shall consider the letter of recommendation by the management seeking for approval to terminate to be dealt simultaneously with the decision to terminate the services as an Appellate Authority. The decision shall be taken in the manner provided by the Division Bench in the writ petition referred to above. 3. The writ petition is disposed of on the above terms. (K.KANNAN) JUDGE 27.04.2010 sanjeev