Vijay Kumar Agarwal vs Union Of India And Anr

Eschewing the unnecessary details, we confine the narration to only those facts which are absolutely essential and relevant to decide the controversy at hand.

The petitioner herein, after emerging as a successful candidate in the Civil Services Examination, was selected in the Indian Administrative Service ('IAS') and was allocated to Maharashtra cadre, where he joined on September 01, 1982. There were certain jerks and upheavals in the service career of the petitioner from the very beginning which need not be mentioned. Suffice it to state that the petitioner was denied senior time scale and he challenged the same by filing writ petition in the High Court of Bombay claiming that he was entitled to the senior time scale with effect from January 01, 1986. With the constitution of Central Administrative Tribunal (hereinafter referred to as the 'Tribunal'), on passing of the Administrative Tribunal Act, 1986, this writ petition was transferred to the Tribunal bearing Transfer Application No. 283 of 1986 and the Tribunal ultimately dismissed the aforesaid transfer application of the petitioner on January 19, 1987. The petitioner assailed the order of the Tribunal by filing Special Leave Petition in this Court in which leave was granted and the case was registered as Civil Appeal No. 3446 of 1987.

In the meantime, since direction of this Court to grant him senior time- scale was to be complied with by the Government, the Collector, Kolhapur sent a bill to be signed by the petitioner so that subsistence allowance could be paid. However, notwithstanding various communications written to him in this behalf he did not sign the same nor submitted non-employment certificate. On the other hand, the petitioner resorted to multiple litigation before the Tribunal and also in this Court directly. It may not be necessary to give the details of these proceedings except to mention that virtually all these proceedings were decided against the petitioner, with the exception of one case where the Tribunal granted him relief directing the Authorities to issue 'No Objection Certificate' to enable him to obtain a passport for going abroad.

We would, however, like to mention that in a Criminal Appeal No. 605 of 1991, this Court passed the orders dated October 31, 1991 requesting the Attorney General to look into his representation as he wanted change of allocation of Maharashtra cadre to any other State. This was done with a view to put an end to various cases which were initiated by the petitioner and were found to be unnecessary or without any merit. Be that as it may, in deference to the wishes of this Court expressed in the aforesaid order, the Central Government informed the Court on December 16, 1993 that State of Punjab was willing to take the petitioner on deputation for one year. In order to enable the petitioner to join there, the suspension of the petitioner was also withdrawn vide orders dated May 13, 1996. However, in the application submitted by the petitioner to the Central Government for his being transferred on deputation to the State of Punjab he put certain conditions which were not acceptable to the State of Maharashtra. Vide another order dated June 07, 1996, he was directed to take charge as Deputy Secretary, Social Welfare, Cultural Affairs and Sports Department, Government of Maharashtra to finalize the procedural formalities required to be completed for the State of Punjab to take him on deputation. The petitioner, however, did not join the said posting because of which his joining State of Punjab on deputation also could not materialize.

The petitioner once again filed another contempt petition in Civil Appeal No. 3464 of 1987 and raised many other grievances therein as well including non-grant of subsistence allowance. The State of Maharashtra informed the Court that his suspension had been revoked but he was not joining the duties. It was also pointed out that subsistence allowance could not be paid as he had not signed the bills sent to him. Orders were passed on September 19, 2001 by the Court for payment of complete salary to the petitioner from May 01, 1988 to May 13, 1996. The amount was calculated and salary for this period, which was in the sum of ?6,82,290/-, was tendered to the petitioner in the Court, however, he refused to accept the same on the ground that this salary was calculated as per the senior time-scale but in the meantime persons junior to him had been promoted and, therefore, he should be given the salary of promotional post. The Court, taking note of the obstinate stand of the petitioner, dismissed the contempt petition as well as all pending applications of October 18, 2001. In the process, this Court observed that the issue of payment of salary at higher scale could not be decided in the contempt petition. Pertinently, the petitioner received the amount of ?6,82,290/- later on.

There were yet various writ petitions, contempt petitions and criminal appeals filed by the petitioner in this Court, all of which were dismissed in default on October 07, 2002. The order dated October 07, 2002 passed in Writ Petition (C) No. 1037 of 1988 records : “Despite the service of notice of hearing to the petitioner for remaining present the petitioner has not remained present. In spite of that petitioner who appears in person has filed an application for transfer of the matter to another Bench. In our view, enough indulgence is shown to the petitioner and he has misused the same. The petition therefore does not require any further consideration. The writ petitions, contempt petitions, criminal appeal and the I.A. are dismissed for default. Interim order stands vacated.” Thereafter, on an application filed, the writ petition was restored. Rather than arguing the writ petition, the petitioner filed another writ petition No. 75 of 2003 claiming multifarious reliefs pertaining to his service which was dismissed on June 16, 2003. Thereafter, vide order dated December 09, 2005, Writ Petition (C) No. 1037 of 1988 was also dismissed with a direction that the petitioner may avail the alternative remedy of approaching the Central Administrative Tribunal.

Few more OAs were also filed by the petitioner in CAT which were dismissed by the Tribunal. Against those orders, writ petitions were also preferred. These writ petitions were also dismissed by the same common judgment. However, for the purpose of present special leave petition, it is necessary to refer to those writ petitions.

With this background, we revert back to writ petition Nos.916/2007 and 2768/2007. As far as writ petition No.916/2007 is concerned, let it be recapitulated that it arises out of OA No.1714/2003 wherein the petitioner had challenged the order dated May 13, 1996 by which his suspension was revoked. This OA was allowed by the Tribunal on the ground that it was necessary for the Government to pass composite order which was the requirement of Rule 5B of the Rules and since the Government had not indicated in the order as to how the suspension period would be reckoned and the decision for payment of salary during the suspension period was also not taken, the order was bad in law. The liberty, however, was granted to the State Government to pass fresh order regarding salary of suspension period. This part of the order granting liberty to the State Government was sought to be reviewed by the petitioner by filing review petition which was dismissed and this dismissal was challenged by the petitioner in the said writ petition No.916/2007.

When the order of suspension is revoked and the suspended employee is asked to join the duty, he is required to do so. How the period of suspension is to be treated is another aspect. At the most, such an employee would be entitled to full salary during the suspension period if no order is passed as to how the suspension period would be governed. That would not mean that order revoking suspension itself becomes bad in law. It is pertinent to mention that even the Tribunal did not say that order revoking suspension was bad in law (In fact that part of the order was favourable to the petitioner). What it held was that in terms of Rule 5(b), the Government should have also decided how the period of suspension is to be treated and, therefore, directed the Government to pass necessary order to that effect.

Otherwise also, in any case, we feel that once the entire salary for suspension period is received by the petitioner, there was no question of making any grievance in respect of order revoking suspension.

Insofar as writ petition No.2768/2007 is concerned, this pertain to challenge to the second as well as third chargesheets and orders dated June 07, 1996 by which he was directed to report for duty as Deputy Secretary in the Social Welfare Department. The High Court dismissed this writ petition with the reason that the petitioner had made repeated attempts and re- agitated this issue time and again. We do not find any fault in dismissing this writ petition as well.

With this, we come to the real issue that is agitated by the petitioner and, in fact, no grievance was made by the petitioner insofar as dismissal of the aforesaid writ petitions are concerned. The petitioner is claiming pay and allowances from June 05, 1996 onwards till date. This was also one of the prayers in OA No.1714/2003 before the Tribunal. The Tribunal had, however, rejected this prayer in the following manner: