Allahabad High Court
U.P. State Sugar Corporation ... vs Smt. Madhuri (Now Deseased) Thru ... on 23 July, 2021
Bench: Munishwar Nath Bhandari, Acting Chief Justice, Manish Kumar
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD, LUCKNOW BENCH
?Chief Justice's Court
Case :- SPECIAL APPEAL DEFECTIVE No. - 242 of 2021
Appellant :- U.P. State Sugar Corporation Ltd.Lucknow Thru M.D. & Anr.
Respondent :- Smt. Madhuri (Now Deseased) Thru Ramasarey And Ors.
Counsel for Appellant :- Sudhanshu Chauhan
Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.,Sandeep Kumar Singh,Vinod Kumar Singh
Hon'ble Munishwar Nath Bhandari,Acting Chief Justice
Hon'ble Manish Kumar,J.
Order on Civil Misc. Delay Condonation Application No. 82897 of 2021
Delay in filing the appeal is condoned as counsel for the side opposite has no objection to it. The application is, accordingly, allowed.
Order on Special Appeal
By this appeal, a challenge is made to the judgment dated 19th February, 2021, whereby the orders dated 8th August, 2012 and 21st January, 2012 passed by the appellants were quashed.
It is a case where a writ petition was filed by the non-appellant to challenge the aforesaid orders alleging that despite of withdrawal of the application for voluntarily retirement on 24th May, 2012, it was accepted by the appellants-respondents on 8th August, 2012. Since the request for voluntarily retirement was withdrawn, it could not have been accepted by the appellants-respondents. The fact regarding an application for voluntarily retirement on 29th December, 2011 is not in dispute but it is a fact that prior to acceptance of the application for voluntarily retirement, an application was given for its withdrawal on 24th May, 2012.
Considering the aforesaid, the learned Single Judge caused interference in the order dated 8th August, 2012. It is more so when the appellants, herein, accepted the request of withdrawal of the application for voluntarily retirement in the cases of other employees. The judgment of learned Single Single is even on the ground of parity. Learned counsel for the appellants could not show or make out a case for taking a different treatment to the non-appellant.
The learned counsel for the appellants could not raise issue against the judgment for causing interference in the order dated 8th August, 2012. The only question raised is in reference to the order dated 21st January 2012. It submits that the order aforesaid has been interfered by the learned Single Judge in ignorance of an order dated 29th April, 2019 passed in the writ petition. The petitioner therein did not press the writ petition to challenge the order dated 21st January, 2012. The writ petition was dismissed for the aforesaid though with liberty to file afresh. Once the writ petition against the order dated 21st January, 2012 was dismissed, there was no occasion for the learned Single Judge to set aside the order aforesaid while passing the final judgment. It is, therefore, prayed that judgment of the learned Single Judge to cause interference in the order dated 21st January, 2012 be interfered.
Learned counsel for the non-appellant could not contest the argument of the learned counsel for the appellants in reference to the order dated 21st January, 2012. The only prayer was to allow the non-appellant to file a fresh writ petition against the said order. It is more so when the non-appellant is no more, thus, claim is made by the legal heirs.
We have considered the rival submissions of the parties and perused the record.
It is not in dispute that after an application for voluntarily retirement on 29th December, 2011, the non-appellant made an application on 24th May, 2012 to withdraw her request for voluntarily retirement. Ignoring the aforesaid, an order for acceptance of the request for voluntarily retirement was passed on 8th August, 2012.
It is settled proposition of law that prior to acceptance of the application for voluntarily retirement or even for resignation, if an application is moved for its withdrawal then, acceptance of the request for voluntarily retirement or resignation thereafter would be illegal.
Apart from the aforesaid, the facts of this case shows even a case of discrimination. The similarly placed employees had also made an application for voluntarily retirement and subsequently withdrew it. Their application for voluntarily retirement was not acted upon. Why an exception was caused in the case of non-appellant has not been clarified.
Taking into consideration the aforesaid, we do not find any ground to cause interference in the order passed by the learned Single Judge in reference to the order dated 8th August, 2012. So far as the judgment in reference to the other order dated 21st January, 2012 is concerned, it needs to be interfered which is in the light of the order earlier passed in the writ petition on 29th April, 2019. The writ petition under challenge to the order dated 21st January, 2012 was dismissed as not pressed though with liberty to file afresh. Accordingly, the learned Single Judge could not have quashed the order dated 21st January, 2012 when the writ petition was not pressed for it rather dismissed. Thus, the judgment of the learned Single Judge is interfered in regard to quashing of the order dated 21st January, 2012, rather to that extent, it is set aside while maintaining the judgment in reference to the order dated 8th August, 2012.
The appeal is partly allowed with the aforesaid.
It is, however, made clear that the non-appellant/petitioner would be at liberty to challenge the order dated 21st January, 2012 by entertaining a fresh writ petition, as was allowed in the order dated 24th January, 2019.
Order Date :- 23.7.2021
VMA
(Manish Kumar, J.) (Munishwar Nath Bhandari, A.C.J.)
