The petitioner has filed this writ petition seeking quashing of the orders dated 07.10.1998 (Annexure-1 to the writ petition) passed by the General Manager (Punjab) Food Corporation of India, Chandigarh, respondent no.5, the appellate order dated 29.09.1999 (Annexure-2 to the writ petition) passed by the Executive Director (N) Food Corporation of India, NOIDA, the Review order dated 09.09.2000 (Annexure-3 to the writ petition) passed by the respondent no.1, Chairman, Food Corporation of India, New Delhi, the order dated 09.02.2001(Annexure-4 to the writ petition) passed by the District Manager, Food Corporation of India, Faizabad communicating to the petitioner that his appeal/review against the order dated 09.09.2000 has been rejected and the order dated 20.07.2006 (Annexure-5 to the writ petition) passed by the Chairman, Food Corporation of India, Headquarters, New Delhi rejecting the mercy petition of the petitioner.
I have heard Sri Sudhir Pandey, learned counsel for the petitioner and Sri Shree Chandra Misra as well as Sri Shikhar Anand, learned counsel for the respondents.
Sri Shree Chandra Misra has raised a preliminary objection that no cause of action has accrued to the petitioner within the State of U.P. and all the impugned orders have been passed either at New Delhi or Chandigarh and therefore, the High Court either at Allahabad or the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court does not have jurisdiction to entertain this writ petition and mere communication of some order by the District Manager, Faizabad communicating the above orders to the petitioner would not confer jurisdiction on the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court to entertain the writ petition.
In order to determine the preliminary objection raised by the learned counsel for the respondents brief facts of the case would be necessary to be narrated. The petitioner while posted as Assistant Manager (Quality Control) at Faridkot, Punjab in the Food Corporation of India was served with a chargesheet vide memo dated 19.07.1995 under Regulation 58 of the Regulations, copy of the chargesheet has been filed as Annexure-6 to the writ petition. A perusal of the same will demonstrate that it has been issued by the Senior Regional Manager, Regional Office of the Food Corporation of India, Chandigarh, Punjab. This chargesheet was communicated to the petitioner through the District Manager, Food Corporation of India, Gurudaspur as disclosed in the chargesheet. By an order dated 15.06.1998 the petitioner was transferred to Lucknow. He was relieved on 03.08.1998 and he joined the Lucknow office of the Food Corporation of India on 04.08.1998. In pursuance of the chargesheet which was issued to him, a departmental enquiry was held. The charges were proved against the petitioner and thereafter the impugned punishment order dated 07.10.1998 (Annexure-1 to the writ petition) was passed and a penalty of stoppage of two increments of pay with cumulative effect effective from 01.01.1999 was passed against the petitioner in exercise of powers under Regulation 56 of the Food Corporation of India (Staff) Regulations 1971. This order has been passed by the Senior Regional Manager, Regional Office, Food Corporation of India, Chandigarh, Punjab. Aggrieved the petitioner filed a departmental appeal which was also dismissed by an order dated 29.09.1999 passed by the Zonal Manager, Zonal Office (N), New Delhi, copy of which has been filed as Annexure-2 to the writ petition. Aggrieved by this order, the petitioner filed a review petition, which has been rejected by an order dated 09.09.2000 passed by the Managing Director, Food Corporation of India, Headquarters, New Delhi. This order was communicated to the petitioner by letter dated 09.02.2001 by the District Manager Incharge Food Corporation of India, District Office, Faizabad. The petitioner preferred a mercy petition which has also been rejected by the Chairman for and on behalf of the Board of Directors, Food Corporation of India, Headquarters, New Delhi, copy of which has been filed at page 43 of the writ petition.
The submission of Sri Sudhir Panday, learned counsel for the petitioner are three fold:
1. That, the writ petition does not suffer from vice of non-maintainability on ground of territorial jurisdiction;
2. That, the impugned order of penalty has been passed by the Senior Regional Manager, Chandigarh, Punjab although as per the Schedule-II of the Regulations (copy filed at page 30 to the writ petition), the Zonal Manager is the competent authority to award major penalty since the penalty of withholding of two increments with cumulative effect is a major penalty.
3. That, the Zonal Manager, is the appellate authority of the Senior Regional Manager and that the appellate authority of any order passed by the Zonal Manager is the Managing Director, Food Corporation of India.
The inferential submission, therefore, is that the order of penalty having been passed by the Senior Regional Manger is without jurisdiction and as a consequence the appellate order passed by the Zonal Manager is also without jurisdiction.
The second submission of the learned counsel for the petitioner is that since the orders have been passed by the authorities, who were not competent to pass the same, the doctrine of merger, namely, that the order of disciplinary authority would merge in the order of the appellate authority does not apply. Before the second and third submissions of the learned counsel can be considered it would be appropriate and in the fitness of things that the first and preliminary objection with regard to the territorial jurisdiction be examined, discussed and decided.
Learned counsel for the petitioner has also placed reliance upon the following decisions of the Supreme Court:
1. (1995) 6 SCC 634, Allahabad Bank Vs. Prem Narain Pande and Others
2. (2007) 7 SCC 309, Municipal Corporation of Delhi Vs. Qimat Raj Gupta and Others.
3. AIR 1966 SCC 1313, State of Punjab Vs. Amar Singh Harika
4. AIR 1974 296 (V.61, C.66), Serajuddin and Co. Vs. State of Orissa and Others.
5. Writ Petition No.6492 (S/S) of 2010, Janmejai Sachan Vs. State of U.P. and Others.
Learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that the judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of Prem Narain Pande (supra) and Janmejai Sachan (supra) would be directly applicable with regard to his submission on the question of territorial jurisdiction of the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court. In the circumstances, it would be necessary to discuss the facts of the case of Prem Narain Pande (supra) and Janmejai Sachan (supra). In the case of Prem Narain Pande (supra), the respondent in the Special Appeal was working as Junior Management Scale-I posted in the Regional Office of the Allahabad Bank at Lucknow. He was served with a chargesheet dated 24.08.1983 with regard to his working as Manager of the Allahabad Bank, District Lakhimpur Kheri. The chargesheet was served upon the respondent no.1 while working at the Central Zone, Lucknow. In the meantime, on 15.07.1985, the respondent no.1 was transferred from Lucknow to Ranchi, Bihar. After transfer, the Assistant General Manger, Zonal Office, Allahabad Bank, Patna Zone took over as the Disciplinary Authority in respect of the pending enquiry against the respondent no.1. An enquiry was held and thereafter the Assistant General Manager, Zonal Office, Patna passed the order dated 21.03.1986 dismissing the respondent no.1 from service of the Bank. The respondent challenged the order of dismissal by filing writ petition in the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court taking the plea, inter alia, that the disciplinary proceedings were initiated against him by the Deputy General Manager, Central Zone, Lucknow and therefore the Assistant General Manager, Zonal Office, Patna had no authority or jurisdiction to pass the impugned dismissal order and it was the disciplinary authority which initiated the proceedings which was competent to pass the final order of penalty. The Supreme Court in paragraph 12 of the judgment has held that if the Deputy General Manager has initiated the disciplinary proceedings against the delinquent officer and if at the stage of passing final orders he is substituted by another competent disciplinary authority like Assistant General Manger, then in such a case, the penalty order though passed by the Assistant General Manager will have a linkage with the initiation of the disciplinary proceedings by the Deputy General Manager as disciplinary authority and in such an eventuality the appeal would lie to the General Manager, who is also one of the appellate authorities as mentioned in the amended Schedule and in either case the reviewing authority against the appellate authority will remain the same, namely, the Chairman and Managing Director. The Supreme Court, therefore, held that it cannot be held as assumed by the High Court that under the Regulations it is the disciplinary authority which initiates the proceedings that has necessarily to complete the proceedings till the stage of Regulation-7 and it is that very authority who must pass the final orders of penalty. It is on this short ground that the decision of the High Court was held to be non-sustainable. In my opinion, the aforesaid judgment has no application to the facts of the present case and in fact the Supreme Court only upset the judgment of the High Court on the question where the High Court held that since the proceedings had continued at Patna, therefore, the Assistant General Manager, Patna was not competent to complete the enquiry and it was only the disciplinary authority, namely, the Deputy General Manger, Lucknow who was competent to continue the departmental enquiry. In my opinion the said judgment does not answer the preliminary objection of the respondents that the writ petition is not maintainable in the Allahabad High Court, Lucknow Bench on the ground that no cause of action has accrued within the State of U.P.
In Janmejai Sachan (supra) the Superintendent of Police Unnao had awarded censure entry to the petitioner. The petitioner during pendency of the disciplinary proceedings was transferred from Unnao to Sitapur. The learned Single Judge, by the interim order dated 15.09.2010 held that only the Superintendent of Police, Sitapur was competent to pass the order of punishment. Reliance was placed by the learned Single Judge upon the case of Prem Narain Pande (supra). The said judgment is an interim order and not the final order, therefore, does not constitute a precedent unless the Court has finally decided the issue. This judgment also does not meet the preliminary objection regarding non-maintainability of the writ petition.
Learned counsel for the petitioner next relied upon the judgment of the Supreme Court in Amar Singh Harika (supra), wherein it was held that mere passing of an order of dismissal is not effective unless it is published and communicated to the officer concerned. The judgment of Amar Singh Harika (supra) is in its own facts. That was a case in which the respondent was sought to be dismissed and an order of dismissal was passed on 03.06.1949. This order was communicated to 6 persons but not to the respondent himself, the respondent on 29.01.1951 made a representation to the Government of Pepsu, in which he asked for being given a copy of the report of the Committee, a copy of the allegations on which the said report was based, and a copy of the chargesheet. In reply he was informed on 16.04.1951 by the Pepsu Government that his report could not be considered as he has tendered his resignation. However, on 28.05.1951 he was informed that he had been dismissed from service with effect from the date of his suspension. It is on this date that the respondent for the first time came to know about his dismissal. The facts of the said case also have no application to the facts of the present case.
In the case of Qimat Rai Gupta and Others (supra), the Supreme Court in paragraph 27 has held that an order passed by a competent authority dismissing a Government servant from service requires communication. Reference was made to the judgment of the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court in the case of Amar Singh Harika (supra). The said judgment also has no application to the facts of the present case as in the case of present petitioner the penalty order dated 07.10.1998 had been communicated to the petitioner and he also filed a departmental appeal against the same on 08.01.1999 which was rejected by the order dated 29.09.1999.
The judgment of the Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court in the case of Serajuddin and Company (supra) is a matter where the revisional order under the Mineral Concession Rules, 1960 was found to be a nullity for not complying with the principles of natural justice and it was held that where the order itself was a nullity such defects could not be cured by giving any opportunity of hearing. This judgment also, in my opinion, has no application to the facts of the present case.
This Court cannot examine the question as to whether the impugned order in the present case are valid or not, or whether if there is any defect in the impugned orders, the same can be cured or not since the question to be considered by the Court is a preliminary objection with regard to the maintainability of the writ petition itself in the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court and therefore, the Court cannot enter into the merits of the case.
From the impugned orders, it is noticed that the chargesheet was issued to the petitioner on 19.07.1995 when he was working at Faridkot from the Regional Office of the Food Corporation of India, Chandigarh. In the meantime he was transferred to Lucknow. The appellate order was passed by the Zonal Manager, Zonal Office (North), Food Corporation of India, New Delhi, the review order dated 09.09.2000 was also passed by the Managing Director, Food Corporation of India, Headquarters, New Delhi. The mercy petition of the petitioner was also rejected by the Chairman for and on behalf of the Board of Directors, Food Corporation of India, Headquarters, New Delhi. The only order which has been passed within the State of U.P. is the communication order dated 09.02.2001 passed by the District Manager, Food Corporation of India, District Office, Faridkot communicating the appellate order dated 09.09.2000. Merely because the order has been communicated to the petitioner when he was posted as Assistant Manager, Barabanki or Lucknow, U.P. will not confer any jurisdiction upon the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court. None of the orders, impugned in the writ petition have been passed by any authority in NOIDA or Lucknow within the State of U.P.
To the contrary a Seven-Judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court in Lt. Col. Khajoor Singh vs. Union of India,AIR 1961 SC 532 has very succinctly laid down the law on the question of jurisdiction in para 13 which reads as under:-
"13.Now it is clear that the jurisdiction conferred on the High Court by Article 226 does not depend upon the residence or location of the person applying to it for relief : it depends only on the person or authority against whom a writ is sought being within those territories. It seems to us therefore that it is not permissible to read in Article 226 the residence or location of the person affected by the order passed in order to determine the jurisdiction of the High Court. That jurisdiction depends on the person or authority passing the order being within those territories and the residence or location of the person affected can have no relevance on the question of the High Court's jurisdiction. Thus, if a person residing or located in Bombay, for example, is aggrieved by an order passed by an authority located, say, in Calcutta, the forum in which he has to seek relief is not the Bombay High Court though the order may affect him in Bombay, but the Calcutta High Court where the authority passing the order is located. It would, therefore, in our opinion, be wrong to introduce in Article 226 the concept of the place where the order passed has effect in order to determine the jurisdiction of the High Court which can give relief under Article 226."
The legal principles propounded in Lt. Col. Khajoor Singh (supra) have been followed by a Full Bench of this Court in 2005 (5) AWC 4542 (FB) Rajendra Kumar Mishra vs. Union of India and others.
Thus in view of the law laid down by the Supreme Court in the case of Lt. Col. Khajoor Singh (supra) and the Full Bench in Rajendra Kumar Mishra (Supra) this writ petition filed in the Allahabad High Court, Lucknow Bench is not maintainable and is dismissed as such.
Order date: 14th August, 2014 N Tiwari