- (1.) Leave granted.
(2.) The appellants were selected and appointed as employees of Nawanshahar central Co-op. Bank Ltd. in 1996. In the year 1997, one Pramod Kumar and Budh Dass filed writ petition C. W. P. No. 12920 of 1997 before the High Court of Punjab and Haryana alleging that the selection and appointment of these appellants were illegal as the selection process was vitiated by so many irregularities and malpractices and the appellants herein were liable to be removed from service. When the writ petition came up for hearing, the counsel who represented Nawanshahar Central Co-op. Bank Ltd. made a statement before the High court that certain irregularities were noticed by the Bank in conducting the selection and the bank would take steps to remove Respondents 6 to 44 (appellants herein) from service. Though the appellants herein contended that the writ petition itself was not maintainable, that plea was not accepted and in view of the statement of the counsel for the Bank, the division Bench on June 2, 1999, disposed of the writ petition as infructuous.
(3.) After this judgment the appellants were served with the notices for enquiry and they approached the Registrar of the Co- operative societies and obtained a stay of the enquiry. Meanwhile Pramod Kumar and Budh Dass who filed writ petition before the High Court filed a contempt petition before the High Court alleging that the respondent Bank failed to implement the order of the High Court dated june 2, 1999, and the High Court by the impugned judgment directed the removal of these appellants from service. The High Court was of the view that the failure to take steps to remove these appellants from service amounted to grave violation of orders passed on June 2, 1999 in the writ petition. Accordingly, the appellants herein were removed from service by an order dated November 8, 2001. Aggrieved by this order passed in the contempt proceedings the present appeals have been filed.;