Case: Mohammad Abdul Salam Khan Vs. Sarfaraz Ahmad Khan &amp; Others

servants prevalent historically in this country. Section 7 of the Police Act, when it uses the expression dismissal must be deemed to have conveyed the official semantics attached to that expression, viz., removal from service plus a ban on re-employment by the State. The non-enumeration of removal as a distinct form of punishment does not divest the appointing authority from exercising, subject to legal restrictions, the power to remove from service without inflicting the more serious punishment of dismissal.9. The expression dismissal and removal look alike for the laity but in law they have acquired technical meanings sanctified by long usage in Service Rules. In Khem Chand v. Union of India, 1958 SCR 1080 at p. 1089 = (AIR 1958 SC 300 at p. 304) this Court observed:" ......... the expressions dismissed, removed and reduced in rank are technical words taken from the service rules where they are used to denote the three major categories of punishment. "As has been rightly pointed out in a recent book, The Civil Servant under the Law and the Constitution - by Dr. N. Narayanan Nair-The Academy of Legal Publications, Trivandrum-1, Kerala (1973), the words dismissal and removal have one distinction, viz., that the former disqualifies from future employment while the latter does not.Like wise, there is reference to this distinction in Shyamlals case AIR 1954 SC 369 at p. 374 wherein it was said :"The position, therefore, is that both under the rules and according to the last mentioned decision of the Judicial Committee (I. M. Lals case AIR 1948 PC 121 ) there is no distinction between a dismissal and a removal except that the former disqualifies from future employment while the latter does not and it may safely be taken, for reasons stated above, that removal and dismissal stand on the same footing except as to future employment. In this sense removal is but a species of dismissal.Rule 49 of the Civil Services (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules, 1930 provides inter alia:"Removal is termination of service which does not disqualify from future employment. "Dismissal is removal from service which ordinarily disqualifies from future employment."It follows that dismissal is removal with a prohibition superadded."10. Against this background, here is Rule 1.6 (2) (iii) of the Punjab Police Rules which applied during the relevant time to the 1st respondent:"16 (2) (iii). When a Police Officer is convicted judicially and dismissed, or dismissed as a result of a departmental enquiry in consequence of corrupt practice, the conviction and-dismissal and its cause shall be published in the Police Gazette. In other cases of dismissal, when it is desired to ensure that the Officer dismissed shall not be re-employed elsewhere, a full descriptive roll, with particulars of the punishments, shall be sent for publication in the Police Gazette."The submission made with some attractiveness by Shri Goyal receives verbal support from the text of the rule. It speaks of a police officer being dismissed in consequence of corrupt practice in which case there is a mandate to the State Government that its cause shall be published in the Police Gazette In other cases of dismissal, the provision for publication in the Police Gazette is facultative. Counsel spins out the argument that if in other cases of dismissal the authority intends to inflict the additional penalty of non-reemployment, it should also publish the punishment in the Police Gazette. In the present case there is no indication of any such publication and so the dismissal does not carry with it the forbidding factor regarding re-employment Read with S. 6-K, which refers to dismissal together with debarment from re-employment, the conclusion is sought to be drawn that the 1st respondents case does not attract the disqualification in Section 6-K.11. We do not agree. The reasons are two-fold. As earlier explained, every dismissal has a double consequence understood in its contextual connotation. It removes the man from his office and superadds debarment from re-employment. Such being its meaning in the Indian Constitution in the relevant rules which have been in force in the country over the decades and indeed has become part of our officialese, we have to understand the dismissal as punishment imposed upon the constable in this case as one which embodies the latent penalty of disability from being re-employed.12. Secondly, even Rule 16 (2) (iii) carefully scanned, refuses to yield the helpful inference drawn from it by counsel for the 1st respondent. That rule does not state in other cases of dismissal the bar against re-employment operates only where there is publication in the Police Gazette to that effect. Dismissal, as such, carries with it this additional penalty in both classes of cases but in the first category covered by the rub publication is a duty cast upon the authority while in the second type of cases the authority is left with the option to publish or not to publish. If the dismissing authority desires to ensure itself that unwittingly some other department may not employ the dismissed official, he may, by way of abundant caution, resort to publication of the punishment in the Police Gazette. The language is clear that to ensure that the officer dismissed shall not be re-employed the concerned authority shall send for publication the relevant particulars. Not that without such publication a right to reemployment inheres in the dismissed official, but that to make sure that any unknowing slip may not be committed by another department, the dismissing officer may take care to forward the particulars of punishment for proper publication. It is enabling so far as the dismissing authority is concerned and is legally unnecessary to spell the two-in-one punishment of dismissal.13. In this view of the matter, there is no escape from the conclusion that the 1st respondent was punished under the former part of Rule 16 (2) (iii) and incurred the-extreme wrath of the law including disbarment from re-employment. Logically therefore he suffered disqualification under Section 6-K of the Act and the Tribunal, in removing him from Chairmanship, acted legally.

Decision (1 = appeal accepted, 0 = rejected): 1

Explanation:
1[ds]6. We are not impressed with this dualism. If dismissals impliciter carries with this in it the ban on re-employment as a necessary jural incident, then both the elements are present implicitly in the-order. It is not as if the interdict against re-employment should be separately stated in the rule or order if by force of law an effective bar in that behalf can be read into the order cashiering the constable. So we are thrown back on the order itself which, admittedly, is silent on prohibition ofargument which weighed with the High Court is that Section 6-K speaks of two components (a) dismissal; (b) and being debarred from re-employment. The second ingredient is not present in the terminal order against the constable and so the formula for disqualification is not fulfilled.It is clear that Section 7 speaks of dismissal as a single category of punishment, not as two twigs from the same branch i. e., dismissal without and with embargo on reentry into State. It may, however, be noticed that there is no specific reference to removal from service, a recognised form of punishment sanctified by the Constitution Acts, including Articlesubmission made with some attractiveness by Shri Goyal receives verbal support from the text of the rule. It speaks of a police officer being dismissed in consequence of corrupt practice in which case there is a mandate to the State Government that its cause shall be published in the Police Gazette In other cases of dismissal, the provision for publication in the Police Gazette isthe present case there is no indication of any such publication and so the dismissal does not carry with it the forbidding factor regarding re-employment Read with S. 6-K, which refers to dismissal together with debarment from re-employment, the conclusion is sought to be drawn that the 1st respondents case does not attract the disqualification in Section 6-K.11. We do not agree. The reasons are two-fold. As earlier explained, every dismissal has a double consequence understood in its contextual connotation. It removes the man from his office and superadds debarment from re-employment. Such being its meaning in the Indian Constitution in the relevant rules which have been in force in the country over the decades and indeed has become part of our officialese, we have to understand the dismissal as punishment imposed upon the constable in this case as one which embodies the latent penalty of disability from being re-employed.12. Secondly, even Rule 16 (2) (iii) carefully scanned, refuses to yield the helpful inference drawn from it by counsel for the 1st respondent. That rule does not state in other cases of dismissal the bar against re-employment operates only where there is publication in the Police Gazette to that effect. Dismissal, as such, carries with it this additional penalty in both classes of cases but in the first category covered by the rub publication is a duty cast upon the authority while in the second type of cases the authority is left with the option to publish or not to publish. If the dismissing authority desires to ensure itself that unwittingly some other department may not employ the dismissed official, he may, by way of abundant caution, resort to publication of the punishment in the Police Gazette. The language is clear that to ensure that the officer dismissed shall not be re-employed the concerned authority shall send for publication the relevant particulars. Not that without such publication a right to reemployment inheres in the dismissed official, but that to make sure that any unknowing slip may not be committed by another department, the dismissing officer may take care to forward the particulars of punishment for proper publication. It is enabling so far as the dismissing authority is concerned and is legally unnecessary to spell the two-in-one punishment of dismissal.13. In this view of the matter, there is no escape from the conclusion that the 1st respondent was punished under the former part of Rule 16 (2) (iii) and incurred the-extreme wrath of the law including disbarment from re-employment. Logically therefore he suffered disqualification under Section 6-K of the Act and the Tribunal, in removing him from Chairmanship, acted legally.