Case Summary
| Citation | State of Mysore v. R.V. Bidap (1974) 3 SCC 337 |
| Keywords | article 316 & 319 of constitution, purposive rule of interpretation |
| Facts | Shri R.V. Bidap was appointed as a Member of the Mysore Public Service Commission on March 20, 1967. While serving in this capacity, he was appointed Chairman of the Commission, effective February 15, 1969. The State of Mysore argued that his total tenure of six years should be calculated from his initial appointment as a member, meaning that his term as Chairman would conclude on March 20, 1973. However, Shri Bidap contended that his appointment as Chairman was a new appointment, and therefore he should be entitled to a full six-year term starting from February 15, 1969. |
| Issues | Whether the member can be appointed as a chairman after his term of six years as a member is over if he has surpassed the age of sixty years? |
| Contentions | The State, Appellant, argued that Shri R.V. Bidap’s six-year term, as guaranteed under Article 316(2) of the Constitution, began on the date he was initially appointed as a Member of the Public Service Commission, which was March 20, 1967. According to this argument, his total tenure as a member— including his time as Chairman—could not exceed six years from that initial appointment date. Consequently, his term would have ended on March 20, 1973, making his continuation as Chairman beyond that date invalid. The State viewed the appointment as Chairman as an extension of his existing membership, rather than a new appointment for the purpose of determining tenure. Shri Bidap, Respondent, argued that his appointment as Chairman of the Mysore Public Service Commission, effective February 15, 1969, represented a new and distinct appointment to a separate office. He contended that the six-year term for the Chairman position should commence from the date he took office, February 15, 1969. As a result, he claimed he was entitled to serve a full term of six years from that date, extending his tenure until February 15, 1975. He asserted that the role of Chairman is different from that of a member, and thus, accepting the Chairmanship initiated a new tenure specifically for that office. |
| Law Points | Although the Chairman is also a member of the Commission, the office of the Chairman is distinct and separate from that of a member. Article 316(2) of the Constitution provides for a six-year term for the office held. When a member is appointed to the new and distinct office of Chairman, a fresh term begins for that position. Article 319(d) of the Constitution supports this perspective by stating that a member (other than the Chairman) of a State Public Service Commission is eligible to be appointed as the Chairman of that Commission. This implies that the appointment as Chairman represents a new opportunity and is not a continuation of the previous role as a member concerning tenure. The Court agreed with the Mysore High Court’s view in an earlier case (Mariswamy v. State of Mysore) that considered a similar situation. The Supreme Court upheld the decision of the Mysore High Court, which ruled in favor of Shri R.V. Bidap. The Court declared that Shri Bidap was entitled to hold the office of Chairman for a full term of six years starting from February 15, 1969. Additionally, the State of Mysore was restrained from making any new appointments to the office of Chairman until the expiry of this six-year term. |
| Judgement | The Supreme Court held that the term of office of the Chairman commences from the date of assumption of the office of Chairman, even if the person was previously a member of the same Commission. |
| Ratio Decidendi & Case Authority | Articles 316 and 319 of the Indian Constitution address the appointment, tenure, and re-appointment restrictions for Public Service Commission Chairpersons and members, alongside prohibitions on future state employment (with limited exceptions), reflecting a strong emphasis on maintaining the integrity of these offices and preventing misuse of authority. |
Full Case Details
V.R. KRISHNA IYER, J. – A short issue as to the expiration of the constitutionally guaranteed tenure of office of a Member of the Public Service Commission, who, in the middle of his term, reincarnates as its Chairman and claims a fresh six-year spell, has lent itself to considerable argument at the Bar, the contributory causes being the differing views of Courts, varying practices of States, apparent incongruity between the paramount purpose and the expressed language of the provisions and the slight obscurity of the relevant articles, the expert drafting and careful screening by the ‘founding fathers’ notwithstanding.
2. One Shri Bidap, the respondent in this appeal, was appointed Member of the State Public Service Commission by the Governor of Mysore on March 20, 1967. While his term was (till running, the Governor was pleased to appoint him Chairman of the Commission with effect from February 15, 1969. The State took the view that the six-years assured to him by Article 316(2) commenced to run from the date he became Member simpliciter and did not receive a fresh start, from the later date when he assumed office as Chairman. Government’s view on the issue was revealed in answer to an interpellation in the Legislative Council made on March 17, 1973. On this reckoning the Chairman’s term would have ended on the 19th and so, the panicked respondent hastened to the High Court to avert the peril of premature ouster and sought an appropriate writ interdicting Government’s move. The timely interim order and the eventual allowance of the writ petition balked the hope of Government and drove the State to this Court in quest of a final pronouncement on the constitutional question involved. While there is divergence of judicial opinion at the High Court level, the preponderance of authority including a ruling of the Mysore High Court itself, militates against the appellant’s stand-point. A broad consensus of administrative practice evolved by the Union Government in response to an opinion tendered by the Attorney-General on a reference made to him at the instance of the Conference of All India Chairmen of Public Service Commissions (prompted by divergent views expressed in a full Bench judgment of the Calcutta High Court) also goes against the appellant’s position. Technically, neither the appellant nor, for that matter, any citizen is bound by administrative verdicts on questions of law and when the High Courts disagree, the law becomes uncertain necessitating resolution of the conflict by the Supreme Court. It is apt to remember the words of Rich.J:
“One of the tasks of this Court is to preserve uniformity of determination. It may be that in performing the task the Court does not achieve the uniformity that was desirable and what uniformity is achieved may be uniformity of error. However in that event it is at least uniformity”
Moreover, in a Government of laws like ours, the last court has the last word on a given law, it being permissible to the Legislature, subject to constitutional limitations, to amend the law, if necessary. The question in the present case being one of general public importance has to be decided by this Court silencing the present and potential disputes and laying down a binding rule for the whole country.
3. Counsel for the appellant strenuously contends that there is high policy animating the provisions which limit the official life of a Member of the Public Service Commission to a significantly short term of six years coupled with an almost blanket ban on the holding of other office or taking up of other employment under Government on ceasing to be a Member. Before we focus on the fasdculus of Articles 316 to 319 to assess the force of this and other submissions, two basic questions fall to be considered. Is there any public policy of great moment behind these Articles and if so, what is it? Secondly, assuming its existence and importance, could this Court, while interpreting die provisions of the Constitution, listen to such extrinsic voices, however natural, logical and pursuasive, or be guided by the golden rule of grammatical construction which treats the text of the statute as a sort of forensic sound-proof room?
4. The working life of an Indian official in administration can easily be, and is, several times the six short years granted to a Public Service Commission Member under Article 316(2). Further employment in public service is also not unusual for superannuated officers, particularly at the higher echelons. And yet there is substantial, although not total prohibition of subsequent employment in public service of Commission Members written into the Constitution by Article 319. The learned counsel rightly stresses that the Public Service Commission has vast powers of recruitment of candidates for an immense and increasing host of Government posts which in a country with considerable unemployment are prone to be abused if too close and too long a familiarity with certain sectors were to be established. The prospect and peril of the Executive tempting with renewals of membership to influence the incumbents may corrupt that institution which must zealously be kept above suspicion. This is the raison d’etre of the narrow period prescribed by Article 316(2), the taboo on reappointment in Article 316(3) and on taking up of any Government service clamped down by Article 319. This view gains strength from the proceedings of the Constituent Assembly, particularly the speech of Dr Ambedkar. May be there is plausibility in the point that the three limitations on the office of membership (made a shade more rigorous in the case of chairmanship) were directed towards obviation of abuse. Even so, is that a dominant concern of court in the interpretation of the statute or altogether irrelevant? Are Constituent Assembly Debates and objects in the mind of law-makers put out of the judicial area of vision by the classical exclusionary rules which are part of our legal heritage from the British?
5. Anglo-American jurisprudence, unlike other systems, has generally frowned upon the use of parliamentary debates and press discussions as throwing light upon the meaning of statutory provisions. Willes, J., in Miller v. Tayler [(1769) 4 Bum 2303, 2332] stated that the sense and meaning of an Act of Parliament must be collected from what it says when passed into law, and not from the history of changes it underwent in the House where it took its rise. That history is not known to the other House or to the Sovereign. In Assam Railways and Trading Co. Ltd. v. I. R. C. [(1835) AC 445 at p. 458], Lord Writ in the Privy Council said:
“It is clear that the lad|uafe of a Minister of the Crown in proposing in Parliament a measure which eventually becomes law is inadmissible and the report of commissioners is even more removed from value as evidence of intention, because it does not follow that their recommendations were accepted.”
The rule of grammatical construction has been accepted in India before and after Independence. In the State of Traowcon-Cockin v. Bombay Company Ltd., Alleppey [AIR 1952 SC 366], Chief Justice Patanjali Sastri delivering the judgment of the Court, said:
“It remains only to point out that the use made by the learned Judges below of the speeches made by the members of the Constituent Assembly in the course of the debates on the draft Constitution is unwarranted. That this form of extrinsic aid to the interpretation of statutes is not admissible has been generally accepted in England, and the same rule has been observed in the construction of Indian statutes—see Administrator-General of Bengal v. Prem Lal Mullick, 22 Ind. Appl. 107 (P. C.) at p. 118. The reason behind the rule was explained by one of us in Gopalan v. State of Madras [(1950) SCR 88] thus:
A speech made in the course of the debate on a bill could at best be indicative of the subjective intent of the speaker, but it could not reflect the inarticulate mental process lying behind the majority vote which carried the bill. Nor is it reasonable to assume that the minds of all those legislators were in accord.”
Or, as it is more tersely put in an American case:
“Those who did not speak may not have agreed with those who did; and those who spoke might diner from each other. United States v. Tram-Missouri Freight Association [(1897) 169 U. S. 290 at p. 318] (sic).
This rule of exclusion has not always been adhered to in America, and sometimes distinction is made between using such material to ascertain the purpose of a statute and using it for ascertaining its meaning. It would seem that the rule is adopted in Canada, and Australia – see Craies on Statute Law, 5th Edn. p. 122 (pp. 368-9).”
In the American jurisdiction, a more natural note has sometimes been struck. Mr Justice Frankfurter was of the view that:
“If the purpose of construction is the ascertainment of meaning, nothing that is logically relevant should be excluded, and yet, the Rule of Exclusion, which is generally followed in England, insists that, in interpreting statutes, the proceedings in the Legislatures, including speeches delivered when the statute was discussed and adopted, cannot be cited in courts.”
Crawford on Statutory Construction at page 388 notes that:
“The judicial opinion on this point is certainly not quite uniform and there are American decisions to the effect that the general history of a statute and the various steps leading up to an enactment including amendments or modifications of the original bill and reports of Legislative Committees can be looked at for ascertaining the intention of the legislature where it is in doubt; but they hold definitely that the legislative history is inadmissible when there is no obscurity in the meaning of the statute.”
The Rule of Exclusion has been criticised by jurists as artificial. The trend of academic opinion and the practice in the European system suggest that interpretation of a statute being an exercise in the ascertainment of meaning, everything which is logically relevant should be admissible. Recently, an eminent Indian jurist has reviewed the legal position and expressed his agreement with Julius Stone and Justice Frankfurter. Of course, nobody suggests that such extrinsic materials should be decisive but they must be admissible. Authorship and interpretation must mutually illumine and interact. There is authority for the proposition that resort may be had to these sources with great caution and only when incongruities and ambiguities are to be resolved. There is a strong case for whittling down the Rule of Exclusion followed in the British courts and for less apologetic reference to legislative proceedings and like materials to read the meaning of the words of a statute. Where it is plain, the language prevails, but where there is obscurity or lack of harmony with other provisions and in other special circumstances, it may be legitimate to take external assistance such as the object of the provisions, the mischief sought to be remedied, the social context, the words of the authors and other allied matters. The law of statutory construction is a strategic branch of jurisprudence which must, it may be felt, respond to the great social changes but a conclusive pronouncement on the particular point arising here need not detain us because nothing decisive as between the alternative interpretations flows from a reliance on the Constituent Assembly proceedings or the broad purposes of the statutory scheme.
6. A few excerpts from the drafting preludes to the framing of the Constitution from the masterly study by B. Shiva Rao and relevant quotes from a few important speeches in the House may be apposite and illuminating. The Royal Commission on Superior Services in India, popularly called the Lee Commission (1924) observed:
“Wherever democratic institutions exist, experience has shown that to secure an efficient civil service it is essential to protect it as far as possible from political or personal influences and give it that position of stability and security which is vital to its successful working as the impartial and efficient instrument by which governments, of whatever political complexion, may give effect to their policies. In countries where this principle has been neglected, and where the ‘spoils system’ has taken its place, an inefficient and disorganised civil service has been the inevitable result and corruption has been rampant.”
As a result of these recommendations Public Service Commissions were set up in the country with the objectives outlined by the Lee Commission. B. Shiva Rao has drawn attention to the doings of the drafting committee:
“Santhanam, Ananthasayanam Ayyangar, Mrs Durgabai and T. T. Krishnamachari suggested an amendment to lay down…… that a member of a State Commission would on retirement be ineligible for any office other than the Chairman or a member of the Union Commission or the Chairman, of a State Commission. The principle of this amendment was accepted by the Drafting Committee which incorporated it in suitable terms in the revised draft of the article moved by Ambedkar in the Comtituent Assembly on August 22, 1949.”
Dr Ambedkar introducing the provisions spoke:
“Now I come to the other important matter relating to the employment or eligibility for employment of the members of the Public Service Commission – both the Union and State Public Services Commissions. Members will see that according to Article 285, clause (3), we have made both the Chairman and the Members of the Central Public Services Commission as well as the Chairman of the State Commission and the members of the State Commission, ineligible for reappointment to the same posts: that is to say, once a term of office of a Chairman and Member is over, whether he is a Chairman of the Union Commission or the Chairman of a State Commission, we have said that he shall not be reappointed. I think that is a very salutary provision, because any hope that might be held out for reappointment, or continuation in the same appointment, may act as a sort of temptation which may induce the Member not to act with the same impartiality that he is expected to act in discharging his duties. Therefore, that is a fundamental bar which has been provided in the draft article.”
Mr Jaspat Roy Kapoor tabled several amendments in support of which he spoke at length. One of the amendments, which was turned down by the House but highlights portions of the area of the present controversy and his speech in support thereof, may be excerpted here:
“That at the end of the proposed new Article 285-C, the following proviso be added:
Provided that a member’s total period of employment in the different Public Service Commissions shall not exceed twelve years.”
“This amendment is more than important than my other amendments. It was confirmed in this view from what I heard Dr Ambedkar say this morning in moving his own amendment. He said, while explaining ArticFe 285 that a person shall not bold office as a Member of a Public Service Commission for more than six years. That of course is partially provided in clause (3) of Article 285. But that clause refers only to the reemployment of a person to that particular post. So far as the other posts are concerned, that clause does not apply. So, according to Article 285-C a Member of a Public Service Commission can continue to be a Member of one or other of the Public Service Commissions for any number of years. I say ‘any number of years’ because, for six years one can be a member of a State Public Service Commission. Thereafter, for another six years, he can be the Chairman of a State Public Service Commission. It comes to twelve years. Thereafter again he can be…. I submit this is not a satisfactory state of affairs.”
Shri H. V. Kamath adverted, in his speech, to this topic when he said:
“It is agreed on all hands that the permanent services play an important role in the administration of any country. With the independence of our country the responsibilities of the services have become more onerous. They may make or mar the efficiency of the machinery of administration – call it steel frame or what you will – a machinery which is so vital for the peace and progress of the country.”
“If a Member of the Public Service Commission is under the impression that by serving and kowtowing to those in power he could get an office of profit under the Government of India or in the Government of a State, then I am sure he would not be able to discharge his functions impartially or with integrity.”
“The public here have sometimes been made to feel that family or group interests have been promoted at the expense of the national; and to protect the Ministers against such a charge, it is necessary that the Public Service Commissions must be kept completely independent of the executive….”
From the parliamentary proceedings the focal point of constitutional vigilance becomes manifest. An indefinite term of office and frequent renewals for any incumbent in the same State or in the Union linked up with tendencies of superannuating officials to prospect for post- retirement posts are fraught with possible patronage and interference with the purity of the Commission’s functioning and should be prevented by legal interdict. Article 316(2) sets a limit of six years for the office of a Member of a Public Service Commission and an outer limit of 60 years of age (65 in the case of the Union Public Service Commission). There is an express bar on reappointment on the expiration of the first term [Article 316(2)]. There is a further prohibition against the securing of any State employment by Members of the Commission on ceasing to be such Members, subject to a few exceptions (Article 319). If the argument of the appellant were to be accepted, a Member, be he Chairman or not, or one or the other in succession, will get a total term of six years only. That is to say, even in the middle of his term as Member, if he is appointed Chairman, he will get only a run of six years to serve from the date he became an ordinary Member. On the other hand, if the rival contention of the respondent were to prevail, in the case of a Member of a State Public Service Commission, there is a possibility of his getting a maximum of six years as ordinary Member and another six years as Chairman of the Commission in the same State. Of course, we are not concerned with the prospect of appointments in other States as the mischief sought to be prevented is the possibility of abuse by too long a tenure in the same State. The situation in which a Member may thus enjoy a twelve-year term is so rare and, perhaps, may fall to the good fortune of only a few exceedingly good Members – and, indeed, anything between six to twelve years may not be so very long in the effective life of a public servant – -that the apprehension of the object of a brief term being frustrated does not disturb us.
In this context, it is reassuring to note that in twelve states and the Union there have been, as disclosed by Ext. ‘G’, only two instances beyond eight years of tenure and only 19 cases where more than a six year term is seen to have been obtained. May be Ext. ‘G’ is not exhaustive, and incidentally it indicates the practice which has prevailed in the country during the last over two decades of reading Article 319(d) as enabling a fresh term of office from the date of appointment as Chairman. It is clear that though mere practice cannot legitimise what is illegal, it contradicts the consternation raised by the appellant of likely misuse of power. In the last resort, the menace to purity of these high offices comes as much from dubious pressures and patronage as from other causes and where the highest seats of power do not guard against these evils, no constitution, no law, no court can save probity in Administration. We cannot assent to the appellant’s argument of fear.
7. Nor is this question of law res integra. The Calcutta High Court had considered it in a Full Bench decision reported in AIR 1966 Cat 290. The majority view was that the term of office of six years was to be computed from the date of the appointment as Member of the Commission and even if, in midstream, he was made Chairman, time ran out finally at the end of the first six years. The minority opinion handed in by Mitter, J., took a contrary view based on an harmonious reading of Articles 316 and 319 reaching the result that a Member appointed as Chairman inaugurates a new term from the later date. The Mysore High Court was confronted with this question in Writ Petitions Nos. 6492, 5031 and 3758 of 1969. There the challenge to the validity of the Chairman’s continuance in office was made by certain disappointed applicants for the post of District Educational officer. The High Court followed the minority view of Mitter, J., and the respondent in this appeal has produced a copy of the Mysore judgment as Ext. ‘B’ along with his Writ Petition since the ruling has not been reported. The Orissa High Court also fell in line with Mysore, dissenting from the majority judgment in the Calcutta case. That decision, reported in AIR 1970 Orissa 205, reads into the appointment of a Member as Chairman an ipso facto cessation of his former office as Member when he enters upon the duties of his new office, and thus seeks to reconcile Article 316 with Article 319. The High Court of Patna responded to this issue in a like manner in a judgment rendered in C. W. J. C. 1997 of 1970. It may be noticed that a Special Leave Petition against this judgment was dismissed in limine by the Supreme Court.
8. It now remains to understand the ratio of those decisions in the light of the anatomy of the constitutional scheme contained in Articles 316 to 319. It is obvious from the language of the articles, admitted by both sides and accepted by all the decisions that a Chairman also is a Member. The appellant’s argument is the Article 316(2) fixes a term of office of six years for a member, who ex hypothesis includes a Chairman, and so the incumbent, be he member simpliciter or member-cum-Chairman or for part of the period member and later Chairman, cannot exceed the legal span of six years in all, membership being a common denominator covering both offices. The framers have taken care to limit the life of member to a term of six years. And wherever [unlike in Article 316(2)] distinct treatment for the two offices is intended, clear language separately dealing with them, or by making references, has been used, as is so evident from Articles 316(1-A), 317 and 319. To fortify the reasoning, reliance is placed on Article 316(3) which places an embargo on reappointment on expiry of the term of office of member (which expression covers Chairman). A larger-than-six-year term by tacking on Chairmanship to membership would violate sub-article (2) and subvert sub-article (3) of Article 316, runs the submission. So presented the argument seems impressive. But this apparent tenor gets a severe jolt when we turn to Article 319(1) (d), for, if full credit were to be given to the opening words, “on ceasing to hold office” a member of a Public Service Commission is declared to be eligible for appointment as its Chairman at the expiration of his six-year term as ordinary member. A member ceased to hold office when six years of service are over and remotely when he is removed for infirmities (Article 317). To deny this effect to the provision, which is an integral part of the scheme, and to confine its operation to recondite instances of insolvents, delinquents and imbeciles dealt with in Article 317 is to argue Article 319 into a reductio ad absurdum.
10. A closer probe into the key Articles 316 and 319 informed by the brooding presence of a constitutional purpose behind them may now be undertaken. A subject-wise dichotomy suggests that Article 316 deals with the appointment of the Chairman and members of the Commission, their term of office and their ineligibility for re-appointment, while Article 319 relates to a different topic viz., the prohibition, with narrow exceptions against further employment in State service. Concern for purity of the office and vulnerability to abuse of powers are writ large on these provisions. Even so, a few legal ideas pervading the articles will dissolve the difficulties conjured up based on Article 316(2) and (3). Let us itemise them.
(1) A Chairman is also a member, as the very first words of Article 316 indicate.
(2) Nevertheless, the office of member is different from that of Chairman and so also the duties attached to each, as is eloquently evident from Article 316 (1-A).
Thus while both are members, they hold different offices. Sub-article (2) sanctions the holding of office by a member for six years “from the date on which he enters upon his office” which is signified by his entering ‘on the duties thereof, to adopt the language of (1-A). An office, as is thus self-evident, has duties and a member simpliciter has certain duties while a Chairman qua Chairman has other duties of office. The offices are different though both the holders are generically members. The prescription of the terminus a quo in (2) is ‘from the date on which he enters upon his office’ which, in the case of a Chairman appointed directly as such or originally as member and later elevated as Chairman, begins when he starts functioning as Chairman. So far is clear.
11. Article 316(3) neatly fits in and indeed the draftsman has perspicaciously focussed attention here on the office of a person and the incumbent’s ineligibility to reappointment to that office. The cardinal point is the identity of the office and the injunction is against reappointment to that particular office. A member can fill one of two offices – as an ordinary member or as a member-Chairman and the disability for reappointment attaches to the specific office. The distinction is fine but real. No member who holds the office of just a member pure and simple shall be re-appointed to the office i.e., to the office of member pure and simple. The offices being different it is semantically wrong to describe the appointment of a member to the office of Chairman as reappointment. To re-appoint to an office predicates the previous holding of that identical office. Re-, as a prefix, has the sense of ‘again’. It follows straight from this that an ordinary member when elevated to the higher office “of Chairman is not reappointed and does not contravene Article 316(2) or (3) even if it be on the full course of six years of the office of ordinary member having run out.
12. Now let us study the ambit and limitations of Article 319. It primarily enumerates the prohibitions attached to the holders of offices of Chairman and member of Public Service Commissions but carves out a few ‘savings’ to the ‘dents’. We are directly concerned with sub- clause (d) which bars a member from taking up employment under Government but expressly declares, by way of exception, eligibility for appointment “as the Chairman of that or any other State Public Service Commission”, on ceasing to hold office as member. The fair meaning of this provision is that a member of Public Service Commission of a State on ceasing to hold office as such is eligible for appointment as Chairman of that Commission itself. Ordinarily when a member has run out his term under Article 316(2), he ceases to hold office. Article 316(2) states that a member shall office for a term of six years which means that on the expiration of that period he ceases to hold office. So the normal way a member ceases to hold office is by his six-year term spending itself out (or by his crossing the age bar of 60 or 65, as the case may be). Logically, therefore. Article 319 means that a member on ceasing to hold office, as a result of his six-year term expiring, shall be eligible for appointment as Chairman of the same Commission. There is no contravention of Article 316(3) which prevents re- appointment to the same office. In the present case, the office of member is different from the office of the Chairman and so there is no un-appointment to that office when a member is made Chairman. Similarly, Article 316(2) is not breached because there is a six-year term for each office. The counter argument on the basis of Article 316(2) and (3) fails to explain Article 319(1) which expressly authorises appointment of a member as Chairman on ceasing to hold office. The very strained argument that the cessation contemplated is not the straightforward category of persons whose six-year term has expired, but the condemned and recondite category covered by Article 317(3) is too jejune for judicial acceptance. For one thing it is extraordinary to think that persons covered by Article 317(3) will at all be considered for appointment to a higher post of Chairman. That sub-article speaks of removal of a member because of insolvency or objectionable engagement in paid employment outside the duties of his office or ineffectiveness to continue in office by reason of infirmity of mind or body. The argument is only to be mentioned to be rejected and it is hardly fair to the framers of the Constitution to think that they would have contemplated such unworthies to be appointed to higher posts by a special provision under Article 319 while the whole purpose of that article is to maintain purity in service by prohibiting temptation for future office! or employment.
13. The learned Advocate General urged that Article 316(2) would be stultified by the interpretation we adopt of Article 319. If a member can be appointed as Chairman on ceasing to hold office under Article 316(2), he could as well be appointed so not merely when his six- year term has expired but also after he has attained the age of sixty years. There is a fallacy in this submission which will be apparent on a careful reading of Article 316(2). That sub-article says that a “member shall hold office for six years or until he attains sixty years, whichever is earlier. When an ordinary member is appointed chairman by virtue of the permission written into Article 319(d), what really happens is that the incumbent takes hold of a new office, namely, that of Chairman. He is a member all the same, as we have earlier seen. This member- cum-Chairman in terms of Article 316(2) shall hold office, which in this case means his new office, for a term of six years or until he attains the age of sixty years. If he is appointed Chairman past sixty, the appointment will be still-born because by the mandate of Article 316(2) he shall hold office only until he attains the ago of superannuation. This date having already transpired, he cannot hold the office at all
14. Another conundrum raised is as to how when an ordinary member in the course of the six-year period is appointed Chairman we can read into such an appointment a ‘ceasing to hold office’ as member, this being a requirement for Article 319 to apply. The obvious answer is that when a member holding the office of a member takes up the office of Chairman, he, by necessary implication and co instante, relinquishes or ceases to hold his office as ordinary member. It is inconceivable that he will hold two offices at the same time and that will also reduce the number of members of the Public Service Commission. Therefore, logically and legally we may spell out an automatic expiry of office of the member qua ordinary member on his assumption of office qua Chairman.
15. Nor is the public mischief sought to be avoided by Articles 316 and 319 defeated by this interpretation. In any case they cannot serve indefinitely, nor remain for anything like twenty-five or thirty years which is the normal tenure of a Government servant.
16. The various rulings we have adverted to earlier substantially adopt the arguments we have set out, although in some of them there is marginal obscurity. The thrust of the reasoning accepted in all but the Calcutta case substantially agrees with what has appealed to us. For these reasons we dismiss the appeal.
