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Lal Bahadur Gautam v. The State of Uttar Pradesh

Civil Appeal · 2019 INSC 648Decided 8 May 2019
Civil Appeal No. 4794 of 2019
Justice Arun Mishra · Justice Navin Sinha

Background

A lecturer at a private unaided college affiliated to Chaudhary Charan Singh University was terminated a second time in 2017, after his first termination had already been set aside by the University's Vice-Chancellor in 2016 for lacking the Vice-Chancellor's mandatory prior approval under Section 35(2) of the UP State Universities Act, 1973. The High Court dismissed his challenge to the second termination, holding his writ petition was not maintainable against a private unaided college. The college management argued it was a purely private "master-servant" relationship not subject to writ jurisdiction, relying on an old Supreme Court ruling under a different, since-repealed university statute.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held the High Court's order was "cryptic, non-speaking" and ignored that the college, being affiliated to the University, was bound by the Act's statutory service-condition safeguards, including the requirement that any dismissal be approved by the Vice-Chancellor before it takes effect. Having accepted and acted on the Vice-Chancellor's 2016 order (which required fresh approval before any fresh termination), the college could not now claim it was free to ignore that requirement; the 2017 termination, made without such approval, was therefore unsustainable. The Court also firmly rejected the management counsel's reliance on a judgment interpreting an entirely different, repealed statute, and used the occasion to strongly reiterate lawyers' professional duty to research correctly and never mislead the court. It set aside the termination, ordered the appellant's reinstatement, while leaving it open to the management to restart proper disciplinary proceedings from the stage of the defect, with back wages to depend on the outcome.

Lesson Learnt

Where a statute makes a specific procedural safeguard (like prior Vice-Chancellor approval) mandatory before an employee can be dismissed, failing to follow it makes the termination invalid regardless of any underlying misconduct allegations, and employers cannot selectively accept the favourable part of an earlier order while ignoring the conditions attached to it.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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