Reply to legal notice not govt order, rules HC

Saurabh Malik

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 14

Kurukshetra University’s action of responding to a legal notice furnished by its employees by sending a reply drafted by its counsel has failed to fine favour with the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

“The reply to a legal notice cannot be treated as an order of the government, much less adverse to the employee, since it does not come from the competent authority empowered to decide a service dispute,” Justice Rajiv Narain Raina ruled.

The ruling in a seniority matter came on a petition by Satish Kumar and other petitioners. The High Court was told that the petitioners preferred another representation after their initial submission for bringing to the varsity’s notice the view expressed by the High Court in the case of Kailash Devi versus state of Punjab.

It was held in the case that replies to representations and legal notices prepared by an officer of the respondent-employer were not to be treated as adverse orders by the competent authorities for purposes of judicial review. The judgment-based request did not receive a response from the university.

Justice Raina directed the designated authority in the university to pass a well-reasoned speaking order after affording an opportunity of effective hearing to the petitioners and persons likely to be affected before drawing seniority inter se.

“I reaffirm that it is not proper for an instrumentality of state to treat a paragraph-wise reply to a notice of demand for justice as an order issued by it unless it has been authored by the statutory authority competent to pass a binding order settling rights of parties and the fact is duly indicated in the response,” Justice Raina asserted.

The Judge went on to add that in case of failure to do so, the reply to the legal notice, as in the present case, could not be treated in law as an order settling the rights of the petitioners and binding on them. It could only be treated as an opinion by a counsel tendered to the university “which ought not to be put to judicial scrutiny as if it was the view of the university”.

Justice Raina concluded by saying replies sent by advocates representing parties were common and acceptable in commercial and civil disputes in the private law domain and represented the view of the principles to which they could be bound in court as admission and denial, apart from being tendered in evidence in a court of law.

“But this is not true in service jurisprudence where rights of employees are governed by statutory rules and the employers qualify as state. The respondent university may make note of this for the future,” he stated.