Rule.14.23 of the Police Rules and only report of acquiring property was to be made. In other words, the said report was to be made after acquiring the immovable property and not before acquiring it. Rule 14.23 of the Police Rules being special rule applicable to Police employees would prevail over the Conduct Rules, which are general in nature. Secondly, even assuming the Conduct Rules to be applicable to the plaintiff as Police Constable, even Rule 18(2) of the Conduct Rules simply stipulates that no government employee shall, except with previous knowledge of the prescribed authority, acquire or dispose of any immovable property either in his own name or in the name of any member of his family. Thus even according to this provision, no previous sanction is required to be obtained and only prior intimation is required to be given. However, the said intimation is required to be given for acquiring or disposing of any immovable property and not for entering into an agreement to sell. In other words, the plaintiff before getting the sale deed of the suit land executed in his favour pursuant to the impugned agreement, was required to intimate the same to the prescribed authority. However, before the sale deed could be executed, the plaintiff had retired from service and, therefore, this rule no longer remained applicable to the plaintiff. In this view of the matter, judgment in the case of Jagir Singh (supra) is not applicable to the facts of the present case. Plaintiff had retired before sale deed pursuant to impugned agreement could be executed after delivery of possession of the suit land to the defendant pursuant to preemption decree. Consequently, there was no occasion for applicability of Rule 18 of the Conduct Rules in the case of the plaintiff.
