New Delhi: The Supreme Court has junked a plea filed by a government officer challenging a Chhattisgarh High Court order, which upheld his dismissal from the service for performing a second marriage without obtaining prior permission from the state government.
A bench comprising justices Aniruddha Bose and Sanjay Kumar, in an order passed on February 6, noted that the punishment for removal from service has been imposed on the petitioner for committing breach of Section 22, paras ‘1’ and ‘2’ of the Civil Services Conduct Rules as applicable to the state of Chhattisgarh.
The said provision stipulates: - “22. Bigamous marriages-(1) No government servant who has a wife living shall contract another marriage without first obtaining the permission of the government, notwithstanding that such subsequent marriage is permissible under the personal law for the time being applicable to him. (2) No female government servant shall marry any person who has a wife living without first obtaining the permission of the government.”
The apex court said, “We have ourselves gone through the memo of charges and we are satisfied that the Articles of Charge in substance contains the allegations for breach of the aforesaid Rules against him”. “We verified from the learned counsel for the petitioner and the State as to whether he had applied for any permission or not and the answer to that query was in the negative”, it said.
The bench noted that the disciplinary authority passed an order for removal of petitioner from service and the appellate authority has affirmed that order. “His mercy plea was also rejected by the competent authority. His writ petition was dismissed by the learned single judge and the order of the single judge was sustained by a division bench of the High Court of Chhattisgarh”, said the apex court.
Advocate Sunil Pillai, representing the petitioner, pointed out a flaw in the memo of charges. He argued that the memo of charges did not allege that the second marriage was contracted by the petitioner without obtaining permission of the state. However, the petitioner’s counsel contention was not accepted by the apex court. “In such circumstances, we decline to interfere with the judgment under appeal. The present petition is, accordingly, dismissed. Pending application(s), if any, shall also stand disposed of”, said the bench, in its order. Additional advocate general of Chhattisgarh, Muhammad Ali Khan, represented the state before the apex court.
The high court had noted that the petitioner was appointed on the post of constable with the police department. He submitted an application for adding the name of his second wife and a minor child in his service record as nominee. In the application, the petitioner had mentioned that his marriage took place in the year 2005 with the first wife, but when she did not conceive even after long marital life, she gave her consent to him for performing a second marriage.
The application was filed by the appellant before the authorities and it was put to enquiry and after receiving the report, a statement of the appellant was also recorded, in which he admitted that he performed a second marriage without taking prior permission from the state government.
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