Research › Search › Judgment

Gauhati High Court · body

2004 DIGILAW 302 (GAU)

State of Tripura v. Arindam Ghosh

2004-04-30

P.G.AGARWAL, TINLIANTHANG VAIPHEI

body2004
JUDGMENT P.G. Agarwal, J. 1. Heard Mr. U.B. Saha, the learned senior Govt. Advocate assisted by Mrs. A.S. Lodh, the learned Advocate appearing on behalf of the State-Appellants. Also heard Mr. D.K. Biswas, the learned counsel for the respondent. 2. This appeal is directed against the judgment of learned Single Judge dated 30.3.1998 passed in Civil Rule No. 389 of 1997. 3. The facts leading to the present appeal are that the respondent-writ petitioner Shri Arindam Ghosh was serving as Junior Engineer, Grade-I appeared in NERIST Entrance Examination in the year 1996 and thereafter on being selected he prayed for grant of study leave. The prayer for study leave was rejected by the concerned authority whereupon he approached this court in the writ petition and vide impugned order the learned Single Judge quashed the order of rejection dated 10.6.1997 and directed the respondents to grant the study leave to the petitioner for studying the course at NERIST, Arunachal Pradesh for the session 1997-98. Hence the present appeal. 4. The learned Government advocate has submitted that while exercising the jurisdiction under Article226 of the Constitution of India the court has no jurisdiction to direct grant of study leave in violation of the Rules framed under Article 309 of the Constitution. The facts as stated above are not in dispute. The petitioner had applied for earned leave for appearing in the Entrance Examination and thereafter on being selected he applied for grant of study leave which is governed by Rule 43 of the Tripura State Civil Service (Leave) Rules, 1986, for short, the 'Rules'. Rule 7(1) provides that leave cannot be claimed as a right. On perusal of the impugned order, we find that the learned Single Judge has granted the relief to the petitioner on the count that three other Govt. servants, namely Kanti Gopal De, Debashish Sen and one Dipak Kumar Mandal were granted leave by the State authority and hence the learned Single Judge held that if leave could be granted to those persons the petitioner is also entitled to get the similar treatment and refusal to grant leave to the petitioner was an arbitrary action and violation of Article 14 of the Constitution. 5. 5. We are unable to agree with the above proposition as because if some of the Government employees have been granted study leave in compliance with the provisions of Rule 43 that cannot be a ground that all employees shall be granted leave. The grant of study leave entails loss of work, expenditure etc. on the part of the Government and the authority concerned has a discretion to quantify the number of persons to be granted study leave. Merely because a person had got selected and passed the entrance examination and got admission in an Institution he cannot as a matter of right that the study leave should be granted to him. Moreover, this is not a case of State sponsorship. It is submitted that the State of Tripura used to sponsor some officers for training at NERIST, Arunachal Pradesh. The respondent-petitioner had not applied for State sponsorship. We also find force in the submission of the learned counsel for the appellant that ordinarily no direction for grand of study leave is passed in exercise of jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution in an alleged violation of any Rules and Orders formulated for the purpose. 6. We, therefore, hold that grant of study leave is not an absolute right of an employee and the State Government has the power and authority to regulate the same and no one can claim leave as a matter of right without complying the conditions provided under the Rule 43. 7. Coming to the case respondent-writ petitioner, Mr. D.K. Biswal, the learned counsel has submitted that the writ petitioner has completed a his study successfully and thereafter resuming his duty in the Department and in the meantime, he has already been promoted to higher grade and as such the impugned order has been complied with. The learned Govt. advocate, on the other hand, submitted that the impugned order passed by the learned Single Judge was stayed by this court vide order dated 5.11.1998. Be that as it may, after going through the facts and circumstances of the case and considering that the learned Single Judge has given the discretionary relief to the respondent-petitioner way back in the year 1998, we do not propose to disturb the same or interfere with the direction. This shall, however, not be treated as a precedent. 8. The writ appeal stand partly allowed disposed of accordingly.