Full Judgment Text
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PETITIONER:
UNION OF INDIA AND OTHERS
Vs.
RESPONDENT:
N.V. PHANEENDRAN
DATE OF JUDGMENT29/08/1995
BENCH:
RAMASWAMY, K.
BENCH:
RAMASWAMY, K.
HANSARIA B.L. (J)
CITATION:
1995 SCC (6) 45 1995 SCALE (5)355
ACT:
HEADNOTE:
JUDGMENT:
O R D E R
Leave granted.
The only contention raised before the Central
Administrative Tribunal was that the Divisional Railway
Manager, Railways, was not the appointing authority.
Therefore, he was not competent to impose the punishment of
removal from service. That found favour with the Tribunal.
Accordingly, the order of removal from service was set aside
by the Tribunal in its order dated November 15, 1989.
The controversy is no longer res integra. In Scientific
Adviser to the Ministry of Defence and others v. s. Daniel
and others [1980 (2) SCR 440], a bench of this Court
interpreted the Rules in a common judgment. On a reading of
Rule 2(a) and Rule 9 of the Railway Servants (Discipline and
Appeal) Rules, it was held that it would be impossible for
the President to deal with all the disciplinary matters of
the Government employees. Therefore, delegation of
appointment power was made to the General Manager and
disciplinary power was delegated to the Divisional Manager.
The General Manager is not the delegator. Consequently, the
doctrine that a delegator cannot further delegate his powers
to the delegatee has no application. As a result, it was
held that the delegation of power to impose appropriate
punishment is permissible. Since the ratio squarely covers
the point of controversy, we are of the view that the order
of the Tribunal is clearly illegal.
It is next contended that though several contentions
have been raised on merits, the Tribunal had only dealt with
on this issue and, therefore, an opportunity may be given to
the respondent to agitate those questions by remitting the
matter to the Tribunal. We find it difficult to accept this
contention. It is true that though several points appear to
have been raised, but before the Tribunal the only
contention argued for the respondent was as extracted in
paragraph 4 of the order of the Tribunal. It says:
"The only point that was urged before us
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by the learned counsel appearing for the
applicant is that the Divisional Railway
Manager not being the appointing
authority is not competent to impose a
punishment of removal from service on
the applicant who is a Travelling Ticker
Examiner in the pay scale of Rs.425-
640."
Since the controversy was only limited to this point before
the Tribunal, we do not find any justification to remit the
matter.
The appeal is accordingly allowed but in the
circumstances without costs.