K V NARAYANA RAO Vs. STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE two petitioners seeking Writs of Certiorari had been employed in the Road Transport Department, whose assets and liabilities have since been taken over by the State Road Transport Corporation. K. V. Narayana Rao, who has filed W. P. No. 65 of 1957, had been a bus conductor with ten years of service. Abdul Rahim, who has presented W. P. No. 119 of 1957, was a mechanic attached to the City Bus Depot at Gowliguda, Hyderabad. Both were placed under suspension by two orders of one R. K. Sharman, who was then the Mechanical Engineer. The orders were of 24 -1 -1955. Both the petitioners have been later discharged from the service and their appeals against the dismissals had been rejected. The W. P. No. 65 of 1957 seeks to vacate the dismissal order of 13 -9 -1956 and W. P. No. 119 of 1957 prays for setting aside a similar order of 5 -10 -1956. The events that culminated in passing of the aforesaid orders can be briefly narrated.

(2.) IN 1954 a Comet Nk. I, new radiator is alleged to have been removed by some of the employees from the Department's Stores premises at Mushirabad and sold to outsiders. An enquiry as to who had removed the radiator and how it was effected was begun in August, 1954. It was conducted by three persons. : (1) M. Rama Reddy, the Works Manager, (2) K. B. Krishnan, the Labour Welfare Officer and (3) K. V. K. Nair, the Stores Officer. The Committee investigated and also recorded certain confession statements. The Writ Petitioners, however, were then afforded no opportunity to meet the evidence thus collected and only their statements were recorded. Among other things the Committee found both the Writ Petitioners implicated in the conspiracy of removing the new radiator and therefore liable to be dismissed. The concluding parts of the report read as follows :

(3.) EACH of the charge -sheets, which is dated 9 -2 -1955, is signed by R. K. Sharman and requires the addressee to submit his remarks within seven days from the receipt, as to why disciplinary action should not be taken against him. Neither charge sheet were accompanied with the extracts from the report of the Committee that had recommended their dismissals. In April, 1955 however each petitioner was given a notice to show cause why he should not be dismissed from the service and the notices had relevant extracts from the report. The fact remains that before the notices the writ petitioners have had no opportunity of meeting the case against them. Thereafter three persons constituting a Committee heard the representations the petitioners had to make against the proposed action and opportunity was also afforded to them to cross -examine some of the persons whose statements had been recorded earlier, particularly Prakasa Rao, who is alleged to have confessed. The persons constituting this new Committee were : (1) R. K. Sharman, who acted as its Chairman (2) K. V. K. Nair, the Stores Officer and (3) M. K. Bage, the Assistant Works Manager. Clearly two members of the new Committee were not in the earlier Committee, but K. V. K. Nair was common to both. The new Committee was apparently not satisfied with the explanations that the petitioners had furnished and in September, 1956 each petitioner was informed about his dismissal.