Chhattisgarh HC: It’s government officers’ duty not to contravene any other previous orders.

A two-judge bench of the High Court of Chhattisgarh on 30.01.2019 in Dile Ram Dahire V. State of Chhattisgarh (WRIT PETITION (S) NO.620 OF 2019) dismissed the appeal. The bench was headed by JUSTICE P. Sam Koshy.

FACTS:

The challenge in the present writ petition is to the order Annexure P-1 where the petitioner had been transferred from Bilaspur to District Koriya. The petitioner vides order was posted as Sub- Divisional Officer (Revenue) Masturi. The District Election Officer had assigned the election duties to the petitioner in the capacity of the Sub-Divisional Officer (Revenue) as an Election Registration Officer. The duty assigned was to supervise the preparation / finalisation of the electoral rolls. The State Election Commission had himself instructed all the Collectors and officers not to shift the place of posting of any of the officers who had been assigned election duties without the leave of the Election Commission but still he was transferred.

ISSUES:

·       Whether the petitioner was in fact assigned election work?

·       Whether the impugned order should set aside?

OBSERVATIONS:

The court observed that:-

• The impugned order seems to be in total contravention to the order of the Chief Election Officer State of Chhattisgarh.
• It was the duty of the government officers duty to take full care while passing any order as to not contravene the previous orders.
• Prima-facie a strong case for grant of stay had been made out.

HELD:

The court put a stay on the impugned judgement and order with the following directions:-

• Petitioner should make the detailed representation within a period of 10 days from the date of this judgement.
• The respondent No.1 take an appropriate decision within a further period of 60 days.

For full judgement refer: 

[embeddoc url=”http://cg.nic.in/hcbspjudgement/judgements_web/WP(S)620_19(30.01.19).pdf” download=”all”]