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2002 DIGILAW 838 (JHR)

Anuranjan Tirkey And Anil Toppo v. State Of Bihar

2002-08-07

TAPEN SEN

body2002
ORDER Tapen Sen, J. 1. Heard the parties. 2. The writ petitioners (12 in number) have prayed for quashing of the order dated 25.3.1996 by which their services have been terminated. They have also made a prayer for a command upon the respondents to pay them arrears of salary for the period when their services had been effectively taken by the respondents. 3. The case of the petitioners is that each one of them were appointed on compassionate consideration by orders passed by the Superintendent of the Ranchi Mental Hospital, Kanke (now known as RINPAS, Ranchi Institute of Neuro & Psychiatric Allied Science). The writ application [CWJC No. 1320 of 1996 (R)] was initially disposed off by an order dated 11.2.1997, by which this Court refused to interfere in the matter relating to termination, but further directed respondent No. 4 to make payment of the emoluments for the period they had served. 4. Against the aforesaid order, a Review Application had been filed being Civil Review No. 24 of 1997 (R) and by an order dated 30.7.1997 this Court observed as follows :-- "(a) That the petitioners had been appointed on compassionate ground before April, 1995 and that their appointments had been made by the Superintendent of the Mansik Arogyashala, Kanke, Ranchi. (b) That, while disposing off the writ application, this Court had held that the appointments have not been made on the basis of recommendations of the committee formed by the Government for the purpose, the appointments were held to be improper, but from the counter affidavit filed in the Review Application it transpires that prior to April, 1995 there was no committee formed for the purposes of recommending the cases of appointment on compassionate considerations and that the Superintendent of the Mental Hospital concerned had been given the authority by the State Government to make appointments." 5. Considering the aforesaid observations the order dated 11.2.1997 was recalled and the instant writ application was ordered to be reopened. 6. Considering the aforesaid observations the order dated 11.2.1997 was recalled and the instant writ application was ordered to be reopened. 6. Now from a perusal of the counter affidavit filed by the Deputy Director Administration, Ranchi Manshik Arogyashala in the aforementioned Civil Review No. 24 of 1997 (R), it has been stated at paragraph 13 as follows :-- "That the petitioners in the review petition have pressed that the appointments were not illegal because a letter issued by a Deputy Director, Health dated 21.5.1990 and 5.9.1989 authorises the Superintendent, RMA to make appointments. It must, however, be pointed out that for the purposes of appointments on compassionate grounds, there is a specific committee chaired by the Collector/District Magistrate/Deputy Commissioner of the respective district, who is the sole and only competent authority to scrutinise the applications for appointments on compassionate grounds and make necessary recommendations to the appointing authorities. In the instant case, none of the petitioners were recommended by this committee and, therefore, the then Superintendent of the RMA is not the competent authority to make appointments on compassionate grounds. Hence the claim of the present petitioners that their appointments were legal is not based on facts." 7. In view of the aforementioned specific stand of the Deputy Director referred to above, it is clear that the facts as mentioned in the instant writ application is that the appointments were made but they were not made by an officer who was competent to do so. In that view of the matter and without interferring with the impugned orders, this writ application is being disposed off with a direction to the petitioners to file a detailed representation before the Secretary, Department of Health, Government of Jharkhand enclosing all relevant documents that they would like to rely upon, within six weeks from today. If such a representation is filed, the Secretary shall consider the cases of all the petitioners in accordance with law. The representations shall be disposed off within a period of two months from the date of receipt thereof. 8. With the aforementioned observations and directions the instant writ application is disposed off.