Allahabad High Court
Uttam Singh vs State Of U.P. & 5 Others on 16 September, 2014
Bench: Amreshwar Pratap Sahi, Vivek Kumar Birla
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD
?AFR
Court No. - 21
Case :- WRIT - C No. - 49956 of 2014
Petitioner :- Uttam Singh
Respondent :- State Of U.P. & 5 Others
Counsel for Petitioner :- Rohit Agarwal
Counsel for Respondent :- C. S. C.,Nikhil Kumar,Sujeet Kumar Rai
Hon'ble Amreshwar Pratap Sahi,J.
Hon'ble Vivek Kumar Birla,J.
1. Heard Shri Shashi Nandan, learned Senior Counsel assisted by Shri Rohit Agarwal for the petitioner; learned Standing Counsel for the respondent nos. 1 to 3; Shri Nikhil Kumar for the respondent no.4 and Shri Sujeet Kumar Rai for the respondent no.6.
2. The nature of the order that is proposed to be passed, it is not necessary to issue notice to the respondent no.5 at this stage.
3. This writ petition has been filed for issuing a writ of quo-warranto for removing the respondent no.5. At the very outset Shri Shashi Nandan submits that this prayer may be ignored. The writ petition is confined to the relief for quashing the transfer order dated 20.2.2014, which according to him is in violation of Regulation 38 (d) of Cooperative Banks Centralized Service Regulations, 1976. The said regulation has been quoted in para-16 of the writ petition.
4. Shri Shashi Nandan submits that the regulation clearly provides that no member of the service shall ordinarily be posted where he permanently resides except under any special conditions. The contention is that no special condition has been mentioned in the impugned order so as to permit the posting of respondent no.5 at Muzaffar Nagar, which is admittedly his home district.
5. Having considered the aforesaid submissions the opposition to the same by Shri Nikhil Kumar is that this petition has been filed only with the objective of removing the respondent no.5 for some other reasons relating to the functioning of the bank. Shri Suresh Singh, learned Additional Chief Standing Counsel submits that this order can be appealed under the provisions of Rule 6 of the Cooperative Banks Centralised Service Rules, 1976.
6. Having considered the aforesaid submissions, Rule 6 of the 1976 Rules is extracted hereinunder:-
"Powers of the Authority. - The authority shall have the following powers:-
(a) To decide all policy matters concerning the service;
(b) To approve the Annual budget submitted by Committee, and
(c) To hear appeals against the order of the Committee, on all matters except those relating to dismissal, removal or reduction in rank which shall be disposed of in accordance with regulation framed under Section 122 of the Act"
7. A perusal thereof would indicate that an appeal lies only against the order of the Committee as defined under Rule 2 (d) read with Rule 4 (b) of the aforesaid Rules. The appeal, therefore, lies against the collective decision of the Administrative Committee and not of any order of the Chairman or any approval given by him to the Secretary in exercise of the powers under Rule 8 (d) of the aforesaid Rules.
8. It would be appropriate to mention that the power of transfer is vested in the Member Secretary under Rule 8 (d), which is to be exercised with the prior approval of the Chairman of the Committee. This, therefore, makes it crystal clear that the appeal under the 1976 Rules would not lie against the order of the Member Secretary and an appeal as contemplated under Rule 6 (c) lies only against the collective decision of the Committee. Consequently the argument advanced by the learned Standing Counsel, that the same is appealable, does not hold water and is rejected.
9. Coming to the issue on merits of the order of transfer, we find that this order was passed on 20.2.2014 about seven months' ago and this petition has now been filed without giving any appropriate explanation with regard to delay and laches in filing the writ petition. However, without going into the merits of the said claim, we provide that if the petitioner represents before the Member Secretary, he shall consider the same and pass orders expeditiously.
10. The writ petition is dismissed with the said observations.
Order Date :- 16.9.2014
RKP
