S.N. PRASAD Vs. STATE OF WEST BENGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Though much was said in the respective pleadings of both the parties in this case eventually, the point which was urged on either side was as to the validity of the order of the General Manager at Annexure D-l to the petition dated the 4th March, 1963, by which he revised and substituted the panel of the candidates for the post of Head Master which was published under the General Managers Memorandum Sch. 18102/54/21 dated 1-5-1959, which is to be found at p. 19, Annexure B-l to the petition and upon which the petitioner founds his claim. The petitioner was an assistant teacher of Railway High Schools appointed in the year 1938. In 1959 a panel was prepared for the purpose of assisting the administration in the matter of promotion of an assistant teacher to the post of Head Master of the Railway High Schools. According to the Rules, a panel was at first issued in a provisional form by the Memo No. Sch. 18102/5421C dated 1-5-1959, at Annexure B, p. 18 to the petition and the petitioner was placed third in that list of six persons included in that panel. This panel was made final by the-order at Annexure B-l already referred to and the petitioners petition as in the provisional list was affirmed by this final order. According to this list, the petitioner got chances to officiate as the Head Master for several years until 1963 when the General Manager revised the panel of 1959 as aforesaid and placed two other persons in the list namely, Sri R. N. Mishra and Sri C. S. Pandey, above the petitioner so that the petitioners place in the original list became the fifth. Consequent upon this rearrangement and the placing of the petitioner lower than his original position in the list, the petitioner lost his officiating post as Head Master and Sri Misra who had been placed higher than him in the panel by the impugned order of the General Manager revising the panel in 1963, displaced the petitioner as Head Master and the petitioner was reverted to his substantive post of assistant teacher. Thereafter, the petitioner could not reconcile himself to this position and went on leave for a period which I must say was remarkably long enough. With that story we are not concerned in this proceeding inasmuch as eventually the question which has been debated is whether the General Manager who made the revision of the panel in 1963 by the order of the Annexure D-2 was competent to revise the panel of 1959 which was made final by the order at Annexure B-l.

(2.) It is common ground that the matter is governed by the Boards letter No. E(NG) 57 P.M. 1-24, dated 8-10-1958, which is included at pp. 15 to 17 of the petition and that those rules have the force of law. The question accordingly comes to one of an interpretation of the relevant rules governing the question of revision. A reading of Rules 4 and 5 shows that the list which is prepared according to the recommendations of the Selection Board has to be approved by the "competent authority" and once it is approved, it will, according to paragraph 6, remain "current until exhausted". There is, however, a provision for amendment or revision of the approved panel contained in the Railway Boards letter No. E 53-P.M. 2-34, dated the 4th Aug., 1953, which says "the panels once approved should not be cancelled or amended without reference to the authority next above the one that approved the panel". The question, therefore, arises as to who was the person who approved the provisional panel in the case before us in the year 1959. The petitioner relies on the order on the Memorandum at Annexure B-l and contends that it was approved by the General Manager. From the original of the memorandum received by the petitioner it appears that while the provisional panel was issued by somebody 'for Chief Personnel Officer, the final panel B-l was issued by somebody "for General Manager". It was contended by Mr. Basu, on behalf of the Railway, that both the memoranda were issued by the Chief Personnel Officer and inasmuch as the words for General Manager are used at Annexure B-l, it must be inferred that it was not the General Manager but somebody else who issued it. Ordinarily, if a letter is issued for a specified person, the inference would be that the letter is issued on behalf of the specified authority and in the case of these two memoranda, the two specified authorities are different. The conclusion, therefore, would be that the provisional list was issued by the Chief Personnel Officer but the final panel was made by the higher authority, namely, the General Manager. If the matter would have stood here, there might have been some room for argument but from the clear pleading in paragraph 3 of the petition that it was respondent No. 1, namely, the General Manager, who made the aforesaid final panel by his order, a copy of which is set forth in Annexure B-l, it cannot be contended that the petitioner made a vague statement in his petition. The averment in paragraph 3 is not contradicted anywhere in the counter-affidavit. If, therefore, it is held that it was the General Manager who approved the provisional panel, then the rules relating to an amendment would require that a revision of the panel so approved could be made by the authority higher than the General Manager and, therefore, the impugned order at Annexure B-l would fail on this ground. Mr. Basu, however, contends that even if it was the General Manager who issued the final panel at Annexure B-l, he had the inherent power to correct his mistake apart from any rules. There is no doubt that it is one of the elementary principles that any authority, whether judicial or quasi-judicial, has got the inherent right to correct what are known as arithmetical or clerical mistakes. But I have great doubt whether the instant case relates to a clerical or arithmetical error as a result of the rearrangement of the panel. The petitioner has lost two places and two persons who were originally junior had been placed above him. The consequence itself shows that the matter was not done in the ordinary course of official business removing clerical mistakes in a written document. The case made by Mr. Basu at the hearing is that the mistake took place in the original list of 1959 in the matter of arranging the successful candidates according to their seniority and inasmuch as it was detected in 1963 that the fourth and fifth persons in the original list were senior to the petitioner, they were, by the revision, placed above him to rectify the original mistake. If the matter had not been governed by statutory rules, the position might have been more difficult for the petitioner because no legal right can be founded on a mere non-statutory panel or list of seniority. But in this case the matter, according to both parties, is- governed by rules having statutory force and it has been provided that a panel once made can be amended or revised only by a specified authority. Once it is acknowledged that it has statutory force, it is enforceable at the instance of the aggrieved employee, D. R. Nim Vs. Union of India, C.A. No. 371 of 1965, D/-5-1-1967 : (A.I.R. 1967 SC 1301) ; Malhotra Vs. Union of India, C.A. No. 1039 of 1965, D/-22-7-1967 (SC) , even though seniority, otherwise, is a matter of discretion with the authorities, High Court of Calcutta Vs. Amalkumar Roy, A.I.R. 1962 SC 1704 . It could not be claimed that the original authority would still retain in him some powers outside the rules, vide Jaisinghani. Vs. Union of India, C.A. No. 1038 of 1965 : (A.I.R. 1967 SC 1427) , unless, of course, the matter can be acknowledged to be a rectification of mere clerical and arithmetical error. Taking a comprehensive view of the matter, I find it difficult to accept that it was a case of mere rectification of clerical error for which inherent power might be invoked apart from the statutory rules.

(3.) It is on this ground alone that the memorandum at Annexure D-l at p. 28 of the petition cannot be sustained and the proper order would be that the respondents be restrained from giving effect to the order revising the original panel by the memorandum at Annexure D-l to the petition dated the 4th of March, 1963. Upon the above finding no other order is called for and it should not be taken as making any pronouncement on the other points raised in the petition.