Forty-three years after he was removed, the Supreme Court restores the order dismissing an RPF Rakshak
Two courts held that only the Chief Security Officer could have appointed him, so a subordinate could not remove him. The Supreme Court went to the Battalion Order and found they had the appointing authority wrong.
Article 311(1) of the Constitution is short and absolute: no civil servant may be dismissed or removed by an authority subordinate to the one that appointed him. Applying it requires answering a question of fact first — who actually appointed him — and on 24 September 2026, in Union of India v. Ramdhani Prasad, a Bench of Justice Aravind Kumar and Justice Vipul M. Pancholi held that two courts had answered it wrongly.
The litigation is old enough to be its own story. The removal order dates from March 1983. The suit was filed in 1986 and dismissed in December 1988. The first appeal was allowed in December 1990. The second appeal was filed in the Allahabad High Court in 1991 and decided in January 2023 — thirty-two years later. The Supreme Court's judgment comes three years after that.
Who appointed him
The respondent served as a Rakshak in the Railway Protection Special Force. The First Appellate Court held he had been appointed by the Commandant and Chief Security Officer, pursuant to a call letter of May 1979, whereas the removal order of March 1983 was passed by the Adjutant — an officer subordinate to that appointing authority. On that footing the removal offended Article 311(1). It also held that an ex-parte departmental enquiry had denied him a reasonable opportunity to defend himself, particularly given his medical condition, and declared both the removal order and the departmental appellate order of November 1984 invalid.
The Trial Court had held the opposite: that he was validly appointed as a Rakshak by the Assistant Commandant by a Battalion Order of December 1979 on completion of his initial training, that the Adjutant was competent to remove him under the Railway Protection Force Rules, 1959, and that the removal was valid. The High Court affirmed the First Appellate Court and dismissed the second appeal.
The Supreme Court went to the documents. The appointment as a regular Rakshak was made by a numbered Battalion Order dated 4 December 1979, issued by the Assistant Commandant of the 2nd Battalion of the RPSF at Gorakhpur, which records his name, personal number and posting. A further Battalion Order of February 1980 confirms that his appointment as a regular Rakshak had already been made with effect from 4 December 1979. On that material, the Bench held, the documents simply do not support the conclusion that the Chief Security Officer was the appointing authority.
“Shall rest with” does not mean “exclusively”
Behind the factual finding lies a question of construction, because the First Appellate Court's view drew strength from the language of the statute.
Section 6 of the Railway Protection Force Act, 1957 provides that the appointment of members of the Force shall rest with the Chief Security Officer, who is to exercise that power in accordance with the Rules. Section 4 recognises the offices of Chief Security Officer, Security Officer and Assistant Security Officer as offices of superior officers.
The proviso to Section 6, however, expressly contemplates that the power of appointment may also be exercised by such other superior officer as the Chief Security Officer may specify. The statutory scheme therefore does not make the Chief Security Officer the exclusive appointing authority.
That reading follows Chandra Pal Pandey, where the Court held that “shall rest” conveys the idea of overall control of appointment resting with the Chief Security Officer, subject to the Rules — not that the power is his alone. The proviso contemplates written delegation, but that does not take away the rule-making authority's power to confer the same power by rule. If the Rules provide for appointment by other superior officers, appointments so made are good.
And who could remove him
Disciplinary powers are distributed the same way. Rule 43 provides that the disciplinary authority for imposing a penalty is the authority specified in Schedule II under whose administrative control the member is serving, and includes any authority superior to it. Schedule II confers on the Assistant Security Officer the power to impose the penalty of removal on Senior Rakshaks and Rakshaks.
With the Assistant Commandant identified as the appointing authority rather than the Chief Security Officer, the premise of the Article 311(1) objection falls away. The Adjutant was not removing a man appointed by someone above him; the Rules placed the power of removal over Rakshaks at that level.
The removal order itself is extracted in the judgment and is brief to the point of terseness. The Adjutant records that he has no option but to hold the case indefinitely, that the man's conduct gives reason to believe he is not interested in his service, and confirms the penalty proposed in the show cause notice — removal from service with immediate effect.
The order
The High Court's judgment of January 2023 in the second appeal was set aside, and consequently so was the judgment of the First Appellate Court. The Trial Court, the Bench held, committed no error in dismissing the suit. The order of removal dated 18 March 1983, passed by the Adjutant, stands restored.
The practical lesson is narrow but useful. An Article 311(1) challenge turns on identifying the appointing authority from the record, and a call letter is not the same thing as the order of appointment. Here the call letter came from one officer and the Battalion Order that actually appointed him from another, and two courts decided the constitutional question on the wrong document.