9911796707
TMI Blog1993 (5) TMI 176X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ve petition. The appellant was appointed as Principal of Dr. Hari Ram (Co-education) Higher Secondary School, Datarpur in Tehsil of Dasuya in the District of Hoshiarpur. He was placed under suspension by the Managing Committee of the said School and charge sheet containing 12 charges was issued to the appellant. Charge No. 12 was to the following effect: the following amounts are reported to have been used by you and are unaccounted for:-- A sum of ₹ 129.37 on account of amalgamated fund for the' month of December, 1969 given to you by Shri Maru Ram teacher' incharge amalgamated fund. The school authorities appointed an enquiry committee consisting of three members of which the said Shri Maru Ram was one of the members. It is an admitted position that the said Shri Maru Ram appeared as a witness in support of charge No. 12 on behalf of administration in the said enquiry proceedings. The appellant raised an objection for inclusion of the said Shri Maru Ram in the enquiry, committee but the said objection of the appellant was overruled by the Enquiry' Committee inter alia on the ground that similarly your objection to the appointment of Shri Maru Ram in ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... 2. 1970. The appellant there after submitted his representation to the Deputy Commissioner against the proposed order of dismissal of the appellant and it was urged by the appellant that the Managing Committee acted in a prejudicial manner and had been trying to urge his dismissal on unfounded grounds. By order dated March 18,1971, the Deputy Commissioner rejected the representation of the appellant. The appellant thereafter preferred an appeal against the order of con on by the Deputy Commissioner under Sub-section (5) of Section 3 of the said Act to the Commissioner, Jullundur Division but such appeal was also dismissed by the Commissioner on December 3, 1973. The appellant thereafter moved a Writ Petition in the High Court of Punjab and Haryana being Civil Writ Petition No. II 21 of 1974 inter alia praying for qushing the enquiry report and the orders passed by the Managing Committee, Deputy Commissioner, Hoshiarpur and the Commissioner, Jullundur Division. The Managing Committee contested the said Writ Petition by entering appearance though Paras Ram, Local Manager-cumVice President of the Managing Committee and the counter affidavit was also filed to the Writ Petition. The ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... atural justice. The learned Judge indicated that Charge No. 12 was sought to be proved by Shri Maru Ram himself who appeared as a witness before the enquiry committee although he was one of the members of the enquiry committee. Since one of the members of the Managing Committee acted both as a Judge and as a witness to prove one of the charges against the appellant despite the objections made by the appellant against the inclusion of such member in the Committee, the entire enquiry proceeding was vitiated. The learned Judge further held that the contention of the respondents that the bias of Shri Maru Ram, even if any, should be restricted only to charge No. 12 and as such the order of dismissal also on the basis of other charges should not be set aside, could not be accepted. The learned Judge was of the view that since Shri Maru Ram conducted the enquiry with bias, the said bias continued and percolated to the entire proceeding and such bias therefore should not be restricted to charge No. 12 only. The learned Judge also rejected-the contention of the respondents that as the appellant did not raise the plea of bias on the part of Shri Maru Ram before the Deputy Commissioner or th ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ant should not be allowed to raise such contention in the Writ Petition. The Division Bench also held that the plea of bias of Shri Maru Ram as indicated in the Writ Petition was also very vague. The Division Bench further held that the Deputy Commissioner gave opportunity to the appellant to meet certain charges and he was not influenced by Charge No. 12 only in respect of which the said Shri Maru Ram appeared as witness. As it appeared from the order that the Deputy Commissioner was impressed with some other char- ges for which the order of dismissal could be confirmed, no interference was called for against the impugned order. The Division Bench, therefore, allowed the appeal and dismissed the Writ Petition. As aforesaid, the appeal is directed against the said impugned judgment of ,he Division Bench in L.P.A. No. 1427 of 1982 dismissing the Writ Petition. In terms of the notice issued on the special leave application the short question as to why the enquiry and the order passed therein should not be set aside and a fresh enquiry should not be ordered on the ground that one of the participants of the Committee was biased, is required to be considered in this appeal. In Adm ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... was observed by Shah,J. : It is true that the order is administrative in character, but even an administrative order which involves civil consequences... must be made consistently with the rules of natural justice. Similar view was also taken in A.K. Kraipak v. Union of India Ors. [1970] 1 SCR 457 and the observation of Justice Hedge may be referred to Till very recently it was the opinion of the courts that unless the authority concerned was required by the law under which it functioned to act judicially. there was no room for the application ofthe rules of natural justice. The validity of that limitation is now questioned. If the purpose ofthe rules of natural justice is to prevent miscarriage of justice, one fails to see why those rules should be made inapplicable to administrative enquiries. There are number of decisions where application of principle of natural justice in the decision making process of the administrative body having civil consequence has been upheld by this Court but it is not necessary to refer to all such decisions. Prof Wade in his Administrative Law, (1988) at page 503, has very aptly observed that the principles of natural justice are appl ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ch thing as a merely technical infringement of natural justice. The requirements of natural justice depend on the facts and the circumstances of the case, the nature of the enquiry, the rules under which the tribunal is acting, the subject-matter to be dealt with, and so forth. One of the cardinal principles of natural justice is : Nemo debetesse judex in propria causa (No man shall be a judge in his own cause). The deciding authority must be impartial and without bias, It has been held by this Court in Secretary to Government Transport Department v. Munuswamy [1988] Suppl SCC 651 that a predisposition to decide for or against one party without proper regard to the true merits of the dispute is bias. Personal bias is one of the three major limbs of bias namely pecuniary bias, personal bias and official bias. A classic case of personal bias was revealed in the decision of this Court in state of U.P. v. Mohd. Nooh [1988] SCR 595. In the said case, a departmental enquiry was held against an employee. One of the witnesses against the employee turned hostile. The officer holding the enquiry then left the enquiry, gave evidence against the employee and there after resumed to complete ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... 9) it has been indicated that answer to the question whether there was a real likelihood of bias depends not upon what actually was done but upon what might appear to be done. In Halsbury Laws of England, (4th Edn.) Vol.2, para 551, it has been indicated that the test of bias is whether a reasonable intelligent man, fully apprised of all the circumstances, would feel a serious apprehension of bias. The same principle has also been accepted by this Court in Manak Lal v. Dr. Prem Chand [1957] SCR 575. This Court has laid down that the test is not whether in fact, a bias has affected the judgment; the test always is and must be whether a litigant could reasonably apprehend that a bias attributable to a member of the tribunal might have operated against him in the final decision of the tribunal. It is in this sense that it is often said that justice must not only be done but must also appear to be done. In the facts of the case, there was not only a reasonable apprehension in the mind of the appellant about the bias of one of the members of the enquiry committee, namely, the said Shri Maru Ram but such apprehension became real when the said Shri Maru Ram appeared as a witness agains ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ment Board, Ambala v. Pyarelal [1963] 3 SCR 341. In our view, the learned Single Judge has very rightly held that the Deputy Commissioner was under an obligation to consider the correctness and propriety ofthe decision of the Managing Committee based on the report of the enquiry committee which since made available to him, showed on the face of it that Shri Ramu Ram was included and retained in the enquiry committee despite objection of the appellant and the said Shri Maru Ram became a witness against the appellant to prove one of the charges. It is really unfortunate that the Division Bench set aside the decision of the learned Single Bench by taking recourse to technicalities that the plea of bias on account of inclusion of Shri Maru Ram in the enquiry committee and his giving evidence on behalf of the department had not been specifically taken by the appellant before the Deputy Commissioner and the Commissioner. The Division Bench has also proceeded on the footing that as even apart from Charge No. 12, the Deputy Commissioner has also considered the other charges on consideration of which along with Charge No. 12, the proposed order ofdismissal was made, no prejudice has been ca ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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