Calcutta High Court (Appellete Side)
West Bengal vs Sri Ajit Kumar Ojha & Ors on 12 May, 2022
14. 12.05.2022
Ct. No.6
Tanmoy
M.A.T. 426 of 2022
The Director of Local Bodies, Government of
West Bengal
-Versus-
Sri Ajit Kumar Ojha & Ors.
With
IA No: C.A.N. 2 of 2022
Mr. Subhrangsu Panda, Adv.,
Ms. Mithu Singha Mahapatra, Adv.,
Mr. J. Bhattacharya, Adv.
...for the appellant.
Mr. Debasish Das, Adv.
...for the respondent no.1/
writ petitioner.
Mr. Jayanta Kumar Das, Adv.,
Ms. Madhumanti Das, Adv.
...for the respondent no.3.
Mr. Tapan Kumar Mukherjee, Ld. A.G.P.,
Ms. Debdooti Dutta, Adv.
...for the State/
respondent nos. 7 to 12.
By consent of the parties, the appeal and the
connected application are taken up together for hearing.
The writ petitioner/respondent participated in a
process for selection of Assistant Tube Well Mistri (in
short, 'ATWM') under the Egra Municipality. It appears
that a panel was prepared and the writ petitioner was
placed as No.1 candidate in that panel for ATWM. Being
aggrieved by non-issuance of appointment letter, the writ
petitioner approached the learned Single Judge. By the
impugned judgment and order dated June 26, 2019, the
learned Judge issued a writ in the nature of mandamus in
terms of prayer (a) of the writ petition for appointing the
writ petitioner forthwith to the post of ATWM.
The appellant says that after the impugned judgment
was passed, the appellant received a representation dated
July 23, 2019, signed by several Councillors of Egra
Municipality, to the effect that the ITI certificate that the
writ petitioner submitted and which was essential for a
candidate to submit, was a fake document. A letter dated
August 26, 2019, to the same effect was written by the
then Chairman of Egra Municipality to the appellant. This
prompted the appellant to make enquiries. It appears
from the Annexures to the stay petition that in response
to a query raised by the appellant, the Deputy Director of
Industrial Training in-Charge of ITI, Tollygunge, wrote a
letter dated September 9, 2019 addressed to the
appellant, which reads as follows:
"In reference to your good office memo No.
1149/DLB/B-412/15-16 dt. 30.08.2019 on the above
captioned subject, the following observations have
been drawn at this end.
1. After scrutiny it is observed that the name and
particulars of the above trainee is not found in
the C-Form (result sheet) of ITI, Tollygunge in
the session August, 98 to July'99.
2. It has also been observed that the rubber stamp
on the un-attested photocopy of PNTC bearing
sl.no.336 is not proper and seems to be fake.
In this context, you are also requested to kindly
forward the attested photocopy of NTC in respect of
Sri Ajit Ojha, s/o Atul Ojha to this end please to
ascertain the genuinely of such certificate.
Your early action in this regard id solicited."
The appellant says that since it appears that the
certificate submitted by the writ petitioner is a forged
document, the order under appeal should be interfered
with. A contempt application filed by the writ petitioner is
pending before the learned Single Judge.
We are of the view that whatever the appellant has to
say, should be said before the learned Single Judge. The
facts that the appellant is seeking to place before us, were
not there before the learned Single Judge. The letters
which have been annexed to the stay petition in support
of the appellant's contention that the writ petitioner's
certificate is fake, all came into existence after the learned
Judge pronounced the impugned judgment. There was no
occasion for the learned Single Judge to consider such
letters. It would not be proper to interfere with the
judgment on the basis of documents, which were not in
existence prior to the learned Judge passing the
impugned judgment.
Accordingly, we dispose of this appeal being M.A.T.
426 of 2022 and the connected application being IA No:
C.A.N. 2 of 2022, without interfering with the impugned
judgment but by requesting the learned Single Judge to
re-hear the writ petition in view of the documents that
have come into existence subsequent to pronouncement
of judgement by the learned Single Judge. The appellant
before us will be at liberty to file an affidavit before the
learned Single Judge within four weeks from date
bringing on record all relevant documents. Within a week
thereafter, the writ petitioner may respond to such
affidavit by filing an affidavit-in-reply. The learned Judge
is requested to consider such affidavits and pass a fresh
order, which will be in supersession of the judgment and
order impugned before us. Till such time that a fresh
order is passed on the writ petition, the order impugned
in this appeal shall be kept in abeyance. We also request
the learned Judge to defer hearing of the contempt
application till the writ petition is decided afresh.
Let urgent photostat certified copies of this order, if
applied for, be supplied to the parties upon compliance
with all necessary formalities.
(Kausik Chanda, J.) (Arijit Banerjee, J.)
