Can’t Dismiss Employee Merely On Ground That He Didn’t Submit Fresh Caste Certificate: Madhya Pradesh HC Orders Reinstatement Of LIC Employee Who Was Dismissed After 33 years Of Service

The High Court clarified that the respondent-Department cannot insist the petitioner to submit another caste certificate after a period of 33 years of service.

This petition, before the High Court, was initially filed under Article 226 of the Constitution challenging the show-cause notice, Enquiry Report and the Charge-sheet including entire departmental enquiry proceedings. During the pendency of the petition, the respondent passed the dismissal order.

The Single-Judge Bench of Justice Vijay Kumar Shukla asserted, “The order of dismissal coupled with forfeiture of all monetary benefits after a period of 33 years of appointment on the ground of not submitting fresh caste certificate is illegal, arbitrary and unreasonable.”

Senior Counsel A.K.Sethi represented the Petitioner while Advocate Jyoti Tiwari represented the Respondent.

The Petitioner was appointed in the year 1992 on the post of Development Officer and since then was continuing his services under the respondents. It was the petitioner’s case that suddenly, after 8 years of service of the petitioner, a complaint was filed by a person belonging to the same caste of the petitioner stating that petitioner submitted a false certificate at the time of appointment but later on the same person withdrew his complaint. However, after the withdrawal of the earlier complaint, another complaint was filed by one Rajkumar Tamrakar against the petitioner. The petitioner wrote a letter to District Collector, Indore regarding issuance of new Caste Certificate but in the meanwhile, the Respondent-Department issued a Show Cause Notice and a Departmental Enquiry was initiated. Thereafter, an order of dismissal was passed in the year 2023.

The respondents supported the order of dismissal on merit on the basis of a Circular issued on January 3, 2014. It was vehemently argued that the services of the petitioner had not been dismissed on the ground that he had submitted a false or forged caste certificate, but his services were terminated in the light of Clause-3 of the Circular as the petitioner had failed to submit an updated digital caste certificate.

On the other hand, the Counsel for the petitioner argued that merely on the ground that the record was not available with the Revenue Authority, the caste certificate issued by the Tehsildar couldn’t be treated as false or forged certificate. The caste certificate was filed in the year 1990 and at that time there was no prescribed format for the same. The report stated that the record in the office of Tehsildar/Naib Tehsildar on the basis of which the caste certificate was issued was not available.

The main issue before the Bench was whether the services of the petitioner could have been terminated in view of Clause 3 of Circular.

After a perusal of the Circular, the Bench explained that as per Clauses 1 & 2, on receipt of information regarding submission of false caste certificate by the employee, the caste certificate has to be forwarded to the appropriate Revenue Authority for immediate verification and explanation to be called from the concerned employee. Clause-3 provides that in cases other than above where the issuing Authority is not in a position to confirm the exact status of caste certificate citing some reason but indicates other reasons such as caste is not included in the list of scheduled castes or no records etc, a Charge-Sheet should be issued immediately and enquiry should be conducted against the employee and brought to the logical conclusion in a time bound manner.

“Thus, the Clause-3 would attract only when the issuing authority is not in a position to confirm the exact status of caste certificate citing some reason, but indicates that other reasons such as caste is not included in the list of scheduled caste”, the Bench said.

“The dismissal of an employee merely on the ground that he did not submit fresh caste certificate, cannot be a ground for dismissal of service. In the present case there was no such report. The report does not indicate that any complaint made by the Revenue Authorities regarding missing of the record or had taken any action against any issuing officer for missing of the record. Merely because the record was not available, the services could not be dismissed under Clause-3 particularly when the application of the petitioner for issuance of fresh caste certificate is pending before the authorities”, the Bench held. As soon as the fresh certificate was issued by the authority, the petitioner would have had to submit the same before the respondents. The petitioner had filed various documents to show that he had applied before the Competent Authority for fresh caste certificate which was not decided by the authorities.

Thus, holding that the order of dismissal coupled with forfeiture of all monetary benefits after a period of 33 years of appointment on the ground of not submitting a fresh caste certificate was illegal, the Bench quashed the impugned order of dismissal and ordered, “The petitioner is directed to be reinstated if not already attained the age of superannuation with all consequential benefits. As a consequence, the petition is allowed.”

Cause Title: Manoj Verma v. Life insurance Corporation & Ors. [Neutral Citation: 2024:MPHC-IND:32146]

Appearance:

Petitioner: Senior Counsel A.K.Sethi, Advocate Mayank Verma

Respondent: Advocate Jyoti Tiwari

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