The respondent No. 3 was serving with the petitioner as Fireman. He was found absent from duty without leave. The petitioner initiated disciplinary proceedings and ultimately terminated his services vide order dated 11-8-1982. The respondent No. 3 assailed this order through an appeal before the Divisional Superintendent, who dismissed the same vide order dated 1-9-1982, The respondent No. 3 thereafter filed a grievance petition, which was partially accepted by the Labour Court vide order dated 18-4-1992. The result was that both the parties impugned this order through separate appeals before the respondent No. 1, who accepted the appeal of the respondent No. 3 as per its own concession while rejected the appeal of the petitioner vide consolidated judgment dated 17-6-1992. The petitioner has not challenged the judgments of the respondents Nos. 1 and 2 through this Constitutional petition, which was admitted to hearing and notices were issued to the respondents. The respondent No. 3 has appeared through his learned counsel while the others did not appear, therefore, they were proceeded ex parte.
2. The learned counsel for the petitioner at the very outset submitted that as far as order of reinstatement is concerned the petitioner has accepted that and he has instructions not to agitate against the same in this Constitutional petition. However, he submitted that the respondents Nos. 1 and 2 have based their judgments on wrong provisions of the rules. He, therefore, requested that this legal wrong be set right. The argument in nut--shell is that the petitioner" is employing different categories of staff. The workmen and workers are governed by the Railway Servants (Efficiency and Discipline) Rules, 1975 while the other staff is governed by the Government Servants (Efficiency and Discipline) Rules, 1973. It is submitted that the respondent No. 2 held that the D.P.O. In the Division is an Officer in Grade-18 was appointing authority of the respondent No. 3, therefore, AME was not competent to issue the charge-sheet Exh. P-3. Similarly, the respondent No. 1 referred to Exh. P-5, according to which President has designated A.G.M. B.P.18 and officer concerned serving in Basic Scale 18 as authority, which according to him applied to only officers to whom Government Servants (Efficiency and Discipline) Rules applied.
3. On the other hand, the learned counsel for the respondent No. 3 has raised objection as to the competency of the petition by the petitioner and on merits argued that there is nothing wrong with the reasoning adopted by the respondents Nos. l and 2.
4. I have given my anxious considerations to the arguments of the learned counsel for the parties, gone through the record and relevant rules. The admitted position is that the respondent No. 3 was governed by the Railway Servants (Efficiency and Discipline) Rules, therefore, in his case authority and authorised officer would be the officers as mentioned in Appendix V while the category would be dealt with by Appendix IV. It seems respondents Nos. 1 and 2 were not properly assisted and it is for that reason the discrepancy occurred in their orders. Their findings to this extent are set aside and it is held that the authority, authorised under sub-rules (2) and (3) of Rule 2 of Railway Servants (Efficiency and Discipline) Rules, 1975 would be the same as mentioned in Appendix V.
5. The upshot of the above discussion is that this writ petition is dismissed with the above observations.