Statutory service rules prevail over executive notifications: deemed abandonment and termination without jurisdiction were invalid.

Executive notifications could not override the statutory scheme governing University service conditions, disciplinary action and cessation of employment. They could supplement the Act and statutes only where the rules were silent, but they could not create a new penalty, a deemed abandonment of service, or authority in the Vice Chancellor to terminate an employee on that basis. The impugned action was also invalid because the matter was shifted from alleged misconduct to abandonment without a proper disciplinary process, the competent authority had not acted within jurisdiction, and the procedure was unfair and contrary to natural justice. A later post-decisional hearing and Executive Council approval did not cure the original defect.

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Issues: (i) whether the University's executive notifications could validly create a deemed abandonment of service and authorize termination by the Vice Chancellor; (ii) whether the impugned action was vitiated for want of jurisdiction and for failure to comply with fairness and natural justice.

Issue (i): Whether the University's executive notifications could validly create a deemed abandonment of service and authorize termination by the Vice Chancellor.

Analysis: The Act and the University statutes and ordinances governed the subjects of service conditions, disciplinary action, and cessation of employment. Executive instructions could supplement the statutory scheme only where the Act did not provide, but they could not create a new penalty, a new mode of termination, or a legal fiction of abandonment when no such provision existed in the rules. The notification of 25.3.1998 was treated only as a set of guidelines and not as a valid source of power to alter the statutory regime. The Vice Chancellor was not shown to have authority to impose such cessation on his own.

Conclusion: The notifications could not lawfully confer a power to deem the employee to have abandoned service, and the Vice Chancellor lacked authority to terminate the service on that basis.

Issue (ii): Whether the impugned action was vitiated for want of jurisdiction and for failure to comply with fairness and natural justice.

Analysis: The employee was first proceeded against as if he had committed misconduct, yet the matter was later treated as abandonment of service without a proper disciplinary proceeding. The Vice Chancellor had pre-judged the matter, ignored the leave recommendation and the statutory procedure, and acted without considering whether leave or permission could be granted. A post-decisional hearing did not cure the defect because the initial action was taken without jurisdiction and in a manner that was arbitrary and unreasonable. The approval later said to have been given by the Executive Council did not cure the original nullity.

Conclusion: The termination was invalid for lack of jurisdiction and for breach of fairness and natural justice.

Final Conclusion: The University's appeal failed, while the employee succeeded in part on relief, with reinstatement-related consequences upheld and back wages limited to 75%.

Ratio Decidendi: Executive instructions cannot override or create substantive service consequences contrary to the statutory scheme, and any order bringing service to an end must be made by the competent statutory authority in accordance with fair procedure and natural justice.

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