- (1.) THIS is an application under Art. 226 by Kanhaiyalal who was a peon in Tehsil Malpura against his dismissal.
(2.) THE facts which have led to this petition may be briefly mentioned. Kanhaiyalal had been in service since 1930. A complaint was made against him of the 26th of August, 1952 by on Modu Daroga before the Sub-divisional Officer, Malpura in which it was said that the applicant had taken Rs. 4/- from him, viz, Rs. 1/-- as bribe and Rs. 3/- for getting an application prepared and presented. It was made clear further by Modu in his statement that Rs. 3/--were paid for getting the application prepared through Chiranjilal petition-writer and Re. 1/-- was paid as bribe. It was found on enquiry that Rs. 3/--were actually paid by Kanhaiyalal to Chiranjilal Petition-writer on behalf of Modu. As for the bribe of Rs. 1/-, the Tehsildar was of opinion that the case relating to bribe had not been duly proved. Consequently, the Tehsildar recommended that the applicant should be transferred and his promotion should be stopped for a certain time. This was done by the Tehsildar as the papers were sent to him by the Sub-divisional Officer for enquiry and report. THE Tehsildar completed the enquiry within one day and submitted his report to the Sub-divisional Officer on the 27th of August, 1955. THE Sub-Divisional Officer thereupon proceeded to hold on that very day against the report of the Tehsildar, that Kanhaiyalal had taken Re. 1/- as bribe. He also then and there dismissed him. THEre was an appeal against this order of dismissal which was also dismissed. THEn the applicant came to this Court in writ and while that writ application was pending, the order of dismissal, dated the 17th of August, 1955 was cancelled because it was realised that it had been passed without complying with the provisions of Art. 311 of the Constitution. Consequently the writ application in this Court was dismissed. Now we come to what happened after the writ application had been dismissed. The Sub-divisional Officer gave notice on the 17th of September, 1956 under Art. 311 (2) of the Constitution. As this notice stands, it does not seem to show that the Sub-divisional Officer had applied his mind to the proceedings which had taken place earlier and had come to certain conclusions himself. But giving a liberal and charitable interpretation to what the Sub-divisional Officer has said, we may take it that this notice informed the applicant that the Sub-divisional Officer had come to the conclusion that "he had intermeddled with the litigants for no ostensible reasons and that this amounted to serious dereliction of duty and gross misbehaviour on the part of the Government servant. " Consequently, the applicant was asked to show cause why he should not be dismissed. The order of dismissal was passed by the Sub-divisional Officer on the 30th of March, 1957 and seems to have gone much beyond what was said in the notice of the 17th of March, 1916. In this order, the Sub-divisional Officer seems to have held that the applicant had accepted a bribe, though no such thing was alleged in the notice. He also held that the applicant had bad intention, though what that means is not clear to us. in any case, the Sub-divisional Officer proceeded to dismiss the applicant and gave him what he called severe punishment because corruption had been proved against him. We must say that when in the notice the Sub-divisional Officer had said nothing about bribery or corruption, it was not right for him to take into account bribery and corruption when determining the quantum of punishment. This time again the applicant went in appeal to the Collector and the Collector dismissed the appeal. It is this order of the Collector which is really before us. The Collector upheld the order of the Sub divisional Officer dismissing the appeal in these words (our translation) : - "it is true that Kanhaiyalal took Rs. 3/from Moduram at the request of Chiranjilal, petition writer and paid them to Chiranjilal Chiranjilal is a Government servant. He had no business to intervene in a matter of agreement between Moduram and Chiranjilal. Kanhaiyalal admitted that be was involved in this transaction. The involve ment in such a transaction is against rules. In the circumstances, the punishment meted out by the Subdivisional Officer, Malpura was correct, as such persons must be given severe punishment, otherwise other Government-servants would be encouraged and commit such offences. " It is clear from this order of the Collector that he does not hold that there was any proof of bribery. As a matter of fact, he has in another part of his order pointed out that the Tehsildar held that bribery had not been duly proved. He has confused the dismissal on the ground that the applicant took Rs. 3/- from Moduram and paid them to Chiranjilal, Petition-writer at the instance of Chiranjilal because he happened to know both of them. Learned Deputy Government Advocate has been unable to point out any provision in the Government Servants Conduct Rules which in any way prohibits Government servants from acting in this manner. The question, therefore, that arise for our determination is whether the applicant can be said to have been dismissed for good and sufficient reasons, as provided in rule 15 of the Rajasthan Civil Services (Classification, Control, and Appeal) Rules, 1950. We are not unaware of such fact that this Court does not go into the merits of the case in its extra-ordinary jurisdiction. But the question whether a dismissal is at all justified under rule 15 and whether the reason given can at all be a good and sufficient reason is a matter in which this Court can go in an appropriate case, otherwise it would be open to those armed with the powered of dismissal to call any reason a good and sufficient reason and dismiss anybody from service. Therefore, where the reason which is said to be a good and sufficient reason for dismissal is really no reason at all and the matter is apparent and requires no argument, the action of a dismissing authority in holding it to be a good and sufficient reason amounts to an abuse of the provisions of the law and this Court will always step into prevent such an abuse of the process of law. In this case, we are of opinion that the reason which the Collector has accepted for upholding the dismissal of the applicant is no reason at all and could never be a good and sufficient reason for the dismissal of anybody from the service of the State. What after all had the applicant done. He knew both Chiranjilal, Petition-writer and Modu, He was asked by Chiranjilal to get his money from Modu and as he knew both of them, he took Rs. 3/- from Modu and paid them over that very day to Chiranjilal. This, in our opinion, can never be a good and sufficient reason for dismissal of a Government servant. We are sure that if the Collector had applied his mind a little more to this aspect of the matter and had instead of a Chaprasi to deal with a more important Government official, he would have immediately come to the conclusion that this sort of thing could never be a reason all for the dismissal of a Government servant. For example, let us assume that the Deputy Government Advocate in Jaipur wants to send a hundred rupees to the Government Advocate at Jodhpur for some private purpose. Let us suppose further that the Judicial Secretary to Government is going from Jaipur to Jodhpur and the Deputy Govt. Advocate, Jaipur hands his money over to him requesting him to give it to the Government Advocate at Jodhpur. Suppose the Judicial Secretary takes the money and hands it over to the Government Advocate in Jodhpur to oblige his two friends. Can it ever be said that his action was against any rules framed to regulate the conduct of public servants or in any way merited dismissal ? As a matter of fact, if such a case were to come to notice, one would not even think about it as worth a moment's consideration. In these circumstances, we are of opinion that the reason on account of which the Collector has upheld the order of dismissal is no reason at all, far less a good and sufficient reason for the dismissal of a Government servant. We cannot allow dismissing authorities to dismiss Government servants for no reason whatsoever, for that would be permitting abuse of the process of law. We therefore, allow the application and set aside the order of dismissal passed against the applicant. He must be reinstated at once. The applicant will get his costs from the State. . ;