Supreme Court Imposes Rs. 10 Lakhs Cost On MP Govt For Denying Appointment To Teacher, Asks Govt To Recover From Erring Officials

Recently, the Supreme Court imposed a cost of Rs. 10,00,000/- (Ten Lakh Rupees) on the Madhya Pradesh Government for disobeying the High Court's order and denying a valid appointment to a 'Samvida Shikshak' selected on a contract basis. The court directed the state government to recover the said amount from the erring official(s) responsible for taking deliberate, illegal, mala-fide actions to deny relief to the Shikshak.

Reversing that part of the High Court's Division Bench order which denied the restitutive relief to the appellant/Shikshak, the bench comprising Justices BR Gavai and Sandeep Mehta observed that despite recognizing that the appointment of the appellant was wrongly denied which was in contravention of its own order, the High Court failed to provide restitutive relief to the appellant even after holding that she was illegally deprived of her lawful entitlement.

“In spite of having passed the selection exam held for the post of Samvida Shala Shikshak Grade-III way back on 31st August, 2008, the appellant did not reap the fruits of her success. The State Government took the shield of an amended rule i.e. Rule 7-A, issued on 29th July, 2009 for denying relief to the appellant herein, even when the said rule had no retrospective application. Not only this, in spite of the High Court having struck down the said rule and passing repeated orders in favour of the appellant, another notification dated 21st March, 2018 was issued making the amended rule effective from 1st January, 2008 i.e. prior to the date of recruitment.”, the Judgment authored by Justice Sandeep Mehta said.

The Court termed the action of the state government an attempt to bypass the orders passed by the High Court by hook or by crook so as to prevent the appellant and her peers of their lawful claim to appointment which stood crystalized long back.

Drawing reference from the case of Manoj Kumar v. Union of India and Others, the court held that the appellant was entitled for restitutive relief along with compensation for the misery piled upon her owing to the arbitrary and highhanded action of the State Government and its officials.

The purpose of granting restitutive relief to the appellant was to take reasonable measures to restitute the injury suffered by her for prolonged litigation, which she suffered due to high handed approach of the state government officials, who denied appointment to the appellant on the position of Samvida Shikshak.

More recently, in the case of Vansh v. Ministry of Education & Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, the court provided restitutive relief to the candidate against the illegal deprivation from his rightful admission in the first year of the MBBS course owing to the insensitive, unjust, illegal, and arbitrary approach of the respondents and so also on account of the delay occasioned in the judicial process.

Accordingly, the following directions are issued:-

"(i) The appellant shall forthwith be appointed to the post of Samvida Shala Shikshak Grade-III or an equivalent post within a period of 60(sixty) days from today.

(ii) The appointment order will be effective from the date on which the first appointment order pursuant to the selection process dated 31st August, 2008 came to be issued.

(iii) The appellant shall be entitled to continuity in service. However, she shall not be entitled to back wages. However, she is granted exemplary cost quantified at Rs.10,00,000/- (Rupees Ten Lakhs only). The above amount shall be paid to the appellant by the State of Madhya Pradesh within 60 days.

(iv) The State Government shall hold an enquiry and recover the said amount of Rs. 10,00,000/-(Rupees Ten Lakhs only) from the officer(s) who were responsible of taking deliberate, illegal, mala fide actions for denying relief to the appellant."

The appeal was allowed based on the aforementioned directions.

Counsels For Petitioner(s) Mr. L.C. Patne, Adv. Mrs. Rekha Pandey, AOR

Counsels For Respondent(s) Ms. Mrinal Gopal Elker, AOR Mr. Saurabh Singh, Adv. Ms. Ankita Chaudhary, A.A.G. Mr. Pashupathi Nath Razdan, AOR Mr. Mirza Kayesh Begg, Adv. Ms. Maitreyee Jagat Joshi, Adv. Mr. Astik Gupta, Adv. Ms. Akanksha Tomar,, Adv. Mr. Argha Roy, Adv., Adv. Ms. Ojaswini Gupta,, Adv. Ms. Ruby, Adv.

Case Title: SMITA SHRIVASTAVA VS. THE STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH

Citation : 2024 LiveLaw (SC) 424

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