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Municipal Commissioner, Jamnagar Municipal Corporation vs R.M. Doshi

Civil Appeal · 2023 INSC 474Decided 2 May 2023
Civil Appeal No. 6069 of 2012
M.R. Shah · J.B. Pardiwala

Background

R.M. Doshi was working as City Engineer of the Jamnagar Municipal Corporation when he was chargesheeted in 1993 for irregularities in execution of road construction work. After a departmental inquiry found him guilty, the Municipal Commissioner dismissed him from service in 1998. Doshi challenged the dismissal in the Gujarat High Court, arguing the Commissioner had no authority to impose such a penalty because the relevant Corporation resolution only empowered him to act on irregularities in "purchases," not on other kinds of misconduct. Both the Single Judge and the Division Bench of the High Court agreed with Doshi and set aside the dismissal, even though they also found the underlying misconduct proved.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court agreed that the Commissioner's original resolution-based authority did not extend to non-purchase irregularities like this one. However, it held that a later resolution of the Corporation's General Board had ratified the Commissioner's dismissal decision, and that this ratification cured the earlier lack of authority, relying on its own precedent in Pannalal Choudhury, which held that a competent authority's subsequent ratification of an unauthorised action makes the invalid act lawful retrospectively. Since the General Board itself had the power to dismiss Doshi and did in fact approve the dismissal, the Court held the dismissal order stood validly, restored it, and set aside both High Court judgments. As a concession to Doshi (who was by then about 75 years old and had been receiving Rs. 10,000/month under an interim Supreme Court order since 2012), the Court directed that the amounts already paid to him would not be recovered despite the appeal being allowed.

Lesson Learnt

An official's decision that is technically beyond their delegated authority is not automatically void forever. If the properly empowered body later formally approves (ratifies) that decision, the ratification can validate it retrospectively, "as if" it had been made by the right authority all along.

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

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