Desai. J. - (1.) These writ petitions under Article 32of the Constitution questioned the validity of the orders dispensing with service of each of the petitioner with immediate effect made by the Director, Local Government, Punjab dated September 25. 1980, as being violative of Arts. 14 and 16 of the Constitution.
(2.) The Punjab Town Improvement Act, 1922 ('Act' for short) was enacted to make provision for the improvement and expansion of towns in Punjab. The Act envisages the creation and constitution of Trusts and the Trusts so created will have a corporate personality with perpetual succession and a common seal. The duties and functions of the Trust inter alia include preparing of schemes under the Act for various purposes. Section 17 conferred power on the State Government to constitute certain services in the manner therein prescribed. One such service contemplated by the section was Punjab Service of Trust Executive Officers. Sub-section (2) of Section 17 conferred power on the State Government to make rules for regulating the recruitment and the conditions of service of members of the Trust Services constituted by the State Government. Armed with this power, the State Government constituted Punjab Service of Trust Executive Officers. In exercise of the power conferred by Section 73 read with Section 17(2) of the Act, the State Government framed rules styled as Punjab Trust Services (Recruitment and Conditions of Service) Rules, 1978 ('Rules' for short). Rule 5(2) (i) inter alia provided that fifty per cent of the vacancies in the cadre of Executive Officers shall be filled by direct recruitment and for this purpose Rule 5 (4) envisaged the setting up of a Selection Committee called Punjab Trust Services Selection Committee.
(3.) In the year 1978, Directorate of Local Government, Punjab issued advertisment No. 1078 inviting applications for the posts in Class I, II and III of Trust Executive Officers. Pursuant to this advertisement, large number of persons applied for various posts. The Punjab Trust Services Selection Committee interviewed various candidates and ultimately recommended eleven persons for the post of Trust Executive Officers. Ajit Singh and Rajinder Singh were recommended for Class I post; S. Sarup Singh and R. L. Bhagat were recommended for Class II post of Trust Executive Officer and the remaining 7 petitioners in this group of petitions were recommended for Class III post of Trust Executive Officers. These recommendations were accepted and appointment orders were issued by Punjab Government on May 28, 1979, and it is not in dispute that all the appointees joined the respective posts. Each one of the appointees was issued an order of appointment to which terms and conditions of appointment were annexed. One such condition worth-noticing reads as under: " (c) All the appointees shall remain on probation for a period of one year under Rule 10(1) of the Rules. The regular appointments shall be subject to the satisfactory completion of the probation period by such appointee after the expiry of one year from the date of his joining." After each appointee completed one year of service, an increment was released in his favour. Suddenly, in exercise of the power conferred by Rule 9 of the '1978 Rules'. Director of Local Government. Punjab dispensed with the service of each of the 11 Trust Executive Officers, who were appointed on May 28, 1979. These orders are impugned in these petitions. As the language of the order was the subject matter of some discussion, the one in respect of petitioner No. 3 R. L. Bhagat may be extracted. It reads as under: "Punjab Government Local Government Department In exercise of the powers conferred under Rule 9 of the Punjab Trust Services (Recruitment and Conditions of Service) Rules, 1978 and all other powers enabling him in this behalf the Governor of Punjab is pleased to dispense with immediate effect the services of Shri Rattan Lal Bhagat who was appointed to the Punjab Trust Service of Executive Officer Class II vide office order No. DLG (TSC)-79/126 dated 28th May, 1979. He will be paid one month's salary in lieu of the month's notice. Sd/- R. D. Joshi, Director, Local Government Punjab. Endst. No. DLG (TSC)-80/8648/51 Dated Chandigarh the 25th Sept. 1980" Validity of this order styled as order dispensing with the service of each of the petitioner is questioned in this group of petitions on the ground that the action is thoroughly arbitrary actuated by extraneous considerations and violative of equality of opportunity in the matter of employment. It is also challenged on the additional ground that after the completion of the period of probation it was not open to the State Government to 'terminate the services of the petitioners, in the manner in which it is done. One more ground of attack was that the action was mala fide in that the petitioners were appointed when a political party of other hue and colour was in power and on a change of Government, the petitioners were victimised. In support of the last contention it was urged that the power to dissolve trust conferred by Section 103 was used to get rid of the petitioners by the fact that after dispensing with the service of petitioners, the trusts have been reconstituted without calling back petitioners to their posts.;