High Court's Division Bench reinstates Panchayat Teacher, modifies and sets aside order of Single Judge Bench

Patna High Court's division bench of Chief Justice and Justice Harish Kumar reinstated a Panchayat Teacher. The judgement modified and set aside judgements of the High Court dated April 28, 2022 passed by a Single Judge in C.W.J.C. No. 17954 of 2019 and C.W.J.C. No. 21685 of 2019 dismissing both the writ petitions filed by Sitamarhi residents Gopal Kumar and Shankar Kumar with a direction to the State Government not to consider any one of them for the post of Teacher and to relieve, any one, who is working on any such post. The Single judge had imposed a cost of Rs.50,000/- to each one of the appellants. The Court has recorded that Shankar Kumar had filed his application form under the category of unreserved without caste certificate and Gopal Kumar's application form was filed under reserved category with his caste certificate.  The report submitted by the State officials also is in support of the contention of the appellant Gopal Kumar and negates the case of appellant Shankar Kumar.

The division bench examined the judgements of the High Court dated April 28, 2022 passed by Justice Sanjeev Prakash Sharma of Single Judge bench. It observed" "this Court is of the considered view that it explicitly deals with the manipulation on the part of the appellant Shankar Kumar and no substantive materials have been found suggesting involvement of the appellant Gopal Kumar in manipulating any document/record." It concluded: "this Court finds that the order rejecting the claim of the appellant Gopal Kumar is not sustainable in any view and accordingly this Court would set aside the order of the learned Single Judge to that extent, which rejected the claim of the appellant Gopal Kumar. So far as the rejection of the claim of the appellant Shankar Kumar is concerned, this Court does not find any error in the impugned order and thus, in our considered opinion, it does not require any interference. However, after taking a lenient view, this Court also would set aside the order to the extent of a cost of Rs.50,000/- imposed on each of the appellants.

The Court directed the respondents including the State of Bihar through its Secretary-cum-Commissioner, Education Department to reinstate Gopal Kumar in service as Panchayat Teacher, the appellant with effect from the date he has been ousted from service after treating the services of the appellant as continuous with effect from his first joining. But it made it clear that he shall not be allowed any monetary benefit for the period he has not discharged any duty and remained out of service. It also made it clear that the earlier period of the appellant Gopal Kumar shall be computed for all other purposes, except the monetary benefit. The judgement was authored by Justice Harish Kumar.