Allahabad High Court
Assistant Genral Manager Central ... vs Deepak Joshi on 24 August, 2023
Bench: Attau Rahman Masoodi, Om Prakash Shukla
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD, LUCKNOW BENCH
Neutral Citation No. - 2023:AHC-LKO:56556-DB
Court No. - 1
Case :- SPECIAL APPEAL No. - 413 of 2023
Appellant :- Assistant Genral Manager Central Bank Of India And 2 Others
Respondent :- Deepak Joshi
Counsel for Appellant :- Gopal Kumar Srivastava
Counsel for Respondent :- Radhika Singh
Hon'ble Attau Rahman Masoodi,J.
Hon'ble Om Prakash Shukla,J.
1. Heard Shri Gopal Kumar Srivastava, learned Counsel for the appellant and Shri Prashant Chandra, learned Senior Counsel assisted by Ms. Radhika Singh along with Ms. Satyajot Chawla, learned Counsel for the respondent.
2. The instant special appeal is filed under Chapter VIII Rule 5 of the High Court Rules, 1952, which for a ready reference, is extracted hereinunder :-
"5. Special appeal.- An appeal shall lie to the Court from a judgment (not being a judgment passed in the exercise of Appellate Jurisdiction in respect of a decree or order made by a Court subject to the Superintendence of the Court and not being an order made in the exercise of revisional jurisdiction or in the exercise of its power of Superintendence or in the exercise of criminal jurisdiction or in the exercise of jurisdiction conferred by Article 226 or Article 227 of the Constitution in respect of any judgment, order or award (a) of a tribunal, Court or statutory arbitrator made or purported to be made in the exercise of purported exercise of jurisdiction under any Uttar Pradesh Act or under any Central Act, with respect to any of the matters enumerated in the State List or the Concurrent List in the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution or (b) of the Government or any Officer or authority, made or purported to be made in the exercise or purported exercise of Appellate or Revisional Jurisdiction under any such Act of one Judge."
3. Shri Prashant Chandra, learned Senior Counsel, at the very outset, has raised a preliminary objection as to the maintainability of the present intra-court appeal on the ground that the order of punishment in the present case as well as the appellate order was passed by the authorities under a Bipartite Settlement which was drawn by the Association of Financial Institutions and the Employees Associations of the respective Financial Institutions/Banks under Section 2(p) and Section 18(1) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 read with Rule 58 of Industrial Disputes (Central) Rules, 1957. According to Shri Chandra, Industrial Disputes Act (Central) traces its legislative competence from Entries 22, 23 and 24 of the List-III in the seventh schedule, i.e. the Concurrent List, therefore, the appellate power envisaged under Chapter VIII Rule 5 of the High Court Rules having specifically excluded the appellate jurisdiction in respect of the matters arising therefrom would, thus, bar the maintainability of the present intra-court appeal, once the writ petition filed by the opposite party was dismissed by a learned Single Judge of this Court by means of the impugned judgment. Reliance has been placed upon the following judgments :-
(i) Oriental Bank of Commerce Vs. Union of India & others, 1997 SCC Online All 1205.
(ii) State of Uttar Pradesh & others Vs. Madhav Prasad Sharma (2011) 2 SCC 212.
(iii) Bhaguati Prasad Yadva Vs. State of U.P. and others, 2014 SCC OnLine All 16552.
(iv) Ram Naresh Singh 187 (Fapl) 2013 Vs. Estate of Late Smt. Maiki and others, 2014 SCC OnLine All 15815.
4. It is, thus, contended that in view of the law as has been laid down by Hon'ble the Apex Court or by this Court in the aforementioned judgments, it is evident that special appeal under Chapter VIII Rule 5 would not lie before this Court arising from the impugned judgment rendered by the Writ Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.
5. Per contra, Shri Gopal Kumar Srivastava, learned Counsel for respondent no.1, placing reliance upon the Division Bench judgment of this Court in the case of Syndicate Bank Head Officer vs. Ashok Kumar, reported in 2016 (34) LCD 2680, has argued that the case of a similarly circumstanced employee of the Bank has been dealt with and the opinion arrived at stands at variance, meaning thereby that special appeal was held to be maintainable under the similar circumstances.
6. We have carefully gone through the judgment placed reliance upon by Shri Gopal Kumar Srivastava and we take note of the fact that the premise upon which the Division Bench judgment rests lays more emphasis on 'Bank' traceable to Entry-45, List-I of Seventh Schedule for the purposes of legislative competence. Drawing our attention to paragraph 11, it is argued that the special appeal was held to be maintainable for the 'Banking' being traceable to Entry 45 of List-I.
7. The preliminary objection raised before us is on a different premise and particularly the Bipartite Settlement under which the impugned action has been taken. The statutory force of the Bipartite Settlement is traceable to the provisions of Industrial Disputes Act (Central) as mentioned above and this fact is not in dispute. It is equally not in dispute that the legislative competence of Industrial Disputes Act (Central) is traceable to Entries 22, 23 and 24 of the Concurrent List. This aspect of the matter has not been dealt with by the Division Bench judgment placed reliance upon by learned Counsel for the appellant. We are equally conscious of the fact that Bipartite Settlement for the purposes of disciplinary action confers powers upon the disciplinary authority who is bound to observe the principles of natural justice before inflicting a major punishment upon a charged employee of the Bank. An exhaustive procedure is envisaged under the Bipartite Settlement which guarantees procedure of fairness. The quasi-judicial proceedings under the Bipartite Settlement provide an exhaustive procedure akin to the procedure of regular Courts more or less. The appeal arising out of the order of punishment is maintainable both on the questions of law and facts before the appellate authority. It is under these circumstances that the jurisdiction of special appeal under Chapter VIII Rule 5 of the High Court Rules after adjudication under Article 226 of the Constitution of India has been opined to be not maintainable in the judgments placed reliance upon by the opposite party. The argument put forth by learned Senior Counsel for the respondent has force and deserves acceptance.
8. In view of the above, the preliminary objection is sustained and the special appeal is dismissed on the preliminary objection alone. The appellant may avail the appropriate remedy under law.
(Om Prakash Shukla, J.) (Attau Rahman Masoodi, J.)
Order Date :- 24.08.2023
Anand Sri./-
