- (1.) THE instant proceeding, in the form of public interest litigation, has been instituted seeking to espouse the cause of the government employees of the State, particularly engaged in the civil courts. At the time of initiation of the present lis, the petitioner No.1, as represented by him, was office the bearer of several organizations devoted to the objective of promoting the interest of such employees. The petitioner No.2 is a retired Lower Division Clerk (LDC) and the petitioner No.3 then, was the Office Superintendent (under suspension), Dacoity Court under the District and Sessions Judge, Dholpur. We have heard Mr.Vimal Choudhary with Mr.Gajanand, learned counsel for the petitioners and Mr.Sanjeev Prakash Sharma, Senior Advocate assisted by Mr.Abdul Shekh Parveen, Mr.N.K.Maloo, Senior Advocate assisted by Mr.V.K.Tamoliya, Mr.Biri Singh, Senior Advocate assisted by Mr.Yashwant Singh and Ms.Sonia Shandilya, learned counsel for the respondents.
(2.) THE petitioners have imputed widespread, high-handed and mala fide action of the respondent No.3 in the capacity of District and Sessions Judge, Bharatpur and apprehended identical actions by him as District and Sessions Judge, Dholpur Judgeship. According to them, this respondent assumed the Office of the District and Sessions Judge, Bharatpur on 31.7.2002 and continued as such till 18.12.2003, whereafter he took over as District and Sessions Judge, Dholpur on 19.12.2003. The petitioner have averred that during 1.8.2002 to 18.12.2003, this respondent indiscriminately and without any basis sanctioned by law, amongst others, selectively ordered compulsory retirement of 25 employees of Bharatpur Judgeship with oblique motive of filling up the vacant posts by persons of his choice. He also compelled many to take voluntary retirement under the threat inter alia of penalizing them under the Rajasthan Civil Service (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules, 1958 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Rules'). Apart from illegally ousting these persons from service to accommodate his chosen few, this respondent also ordered recovery of huge amounts from the employees of the same Judgeship on the conjured plea of having been paid in excess of their pay and allowances and that too, without affording any opportunity of hearing to them. He also caused to be served 100 charge-sheets under Rule 17 of the Rules and also marred the Annual Confidential Reports (ACRs) of various employees to spoil their service prospects. He also resorted to indiscriminate transfer of several employees from one court to the other. Further, against 16 advertised vacancies for the post of LDCs in his Judgeship, he recruited 37 persons in utter disregard of the provisions of the relevant rules. While doing so, the petitioners have alleged that he excluded the incumbents belonging to his caste from the purview of his illegal, partisan and motivated actions and instead favoured them in all respects. In reply, the respondent No.1, Registrar General, Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur, while contending that the petitioner No.1 was dead, pleaded that the petitioner No.2 had been compulsorily retired, and that his challenge against the same as registered in Civil Writ Petition No.3410/2003 had been dismissed on 12.9.2003, and that his statutory appeal on the administrative side of this Court had also met the same fate. Vis-a-vis the petitioner No.3, this respondent averred that his statutory appeal against his removal from service was however then pending. It has been asserted that the action on the administrative side taken against the petitioners No.2 and 3 has been in strict conformity with law and that meanwhile, the respondent No.3 had been transferred out of the districts of Bharatpur and Dholpur and for which there was no basis for any apprehension, as mentioned in the writ petition. While disputing the maintainability of the petition as public interest litigation, in the framework of the facts as presented, it has been averred that the complaints against the respondent No.3 with regard to the recruitment of LDCs had been enquired into and were eventually dropped. That the allegations with regard to the illegal compulsory retirement, removal etc., had been enquired into and found to be misconceived, has been mentioned as well. Apart from reiterating these averments, the respondent No.3, in particular in his affidavit, refuted in specific terms the allegations levelled against him. According to him, several disciplinary proceedings against respondent No.2 had been pending at the time when he had assumed the Office of the District and Sessions Judge, Bharatpur and that the compulsory retirements and removal etc., effected were strictly in accordance with the relevant rules and as demanded by the administrative exigencies. Apart from asserting that the vacancies were filled up from time to time in compliance of the directives to that effect issued by this Court, this respondent also endorsed the validity of the recoveries made. He also denied the allegations based on caste and also disputed the caste of the persons as enumerated in the lists furnished by the petitioners to demonstrate his affinity for them in the matter of recruitment and otherwise.
(3.) IN this factual backdrop, the learned counsel for the respondents at the threshold have questioned the maintainability of the present proceedings on the ground that the issues involved are service domain. They thus urged that the instant proceeding ought to be rejected in limine. While arguing to the contra, the learned counsel for the petitioners referred in details to the pleaded averments and the documents in support thereof to insist that the same would reveal a series of unabated illegal and motivated steps taken by the respondent No.3 in flagrant abuse of his office, generally impacting on the public interest at large for which interference of this Court is warranted. The learned counsel for the respondent No.3, however, maintained that not only the allegations are baseless, in absence of any proof thereof, the same ought to rejected with exemplary costs. As the fact finding enquiries into the same complaints did not yield any material in support of such allegations and have in fact been closed by this Court on the administrative side, this petition ought to be dismissed, he urged. According to the learned counsel there being no instance of any challenge to the alleged actions of the respondent No.3 by any of the affected persons, no interference at this stage is called for.;