Ranganathan, J. - (1.) A very short question as to the interpretation of the Service regulations of the appellant bank comes up for consideration in this appeal. The relevant service regulation is Regulation No. 20 which reads as under:-"20.(1) Subject to sub-regulation (3) of regulation 16, the bank may terminate the services of any officer by giving him months' notice in writing or by paying him three months' emoluments in lieu thereof. (2) No officer shall resign from the service of the bank otherwise than on the expiry of three months from the service on the bank of a notice in writing of such resignation. Provided further that the competent authority may reduce the period of three months, or remit the requirement of notice."
(2.) The respondent, a permanent officer in the bank, sent a communication to the bank on 21st January, 1986. By this letter he purported to resign from the service of the bank due to personal reasons. He added that the date of receipt of the letter should be treated as the date of the commencement of the notice period so that, inclusive of the same, his resignation would become effective on 30th June, 1986. According to the respondent, the Deputy General Manager, who was the competent authority under the Service Regulations, had agreed that the resignation may be accepted with effect from 30th of June, 1986. However, what actually transpired was that the respondent received a letter from the bank on 7th February, 1986 informing him that his resignation letter dated 21st January, 1986 had been accepted by the competent authority with immediate effect by waiving the condition of notice and that, consequently, he was being relieved from the service of the bank with effect from the afternoon of the same date, namely, 7th February, 1986. The respondent thereupon filed a writ petition in the High Court challenging-the validity of the purported acceptance of his resignation with effect from 7th February, 1986 and for a direction to the bank to treat him as in service of the bank up to 30th June, 1986 and as entitled to all benefits while being in such service.
(3.) A further development took place after the filing of the writ petition, and before it came up for hearing .On 15th April, 986 the respondent wrote a letter to the bank by which be purported to withdraw the resignation letter dated 21st January, 1986. The High Court therefore, dealt with the situation resulting from this subsequent development. The High Court held that the petitioner's resignation letter would have become effective on1y on the 30th June, 1986. Under the regulations there was no jurisdiction whatever in the competent authority to determine his services earlier. Until the resignation became effective on 30th June, 1986, the petitioner had a right to withdraw the same and in fact had also exercised that right. The High Court concluded: "We may notice that this writ petition was filed at a stage when the petitioner had not sent his letter dated 15th April, 1986 whereby he withdrew his resignation letter dated 21th January, 1986. This is a subsequent development during the pendency of the writ petition. Therefore, we are not called upon to decide the earlier grievance that the resignation could not have been accepted at an earlier date. Even to that submission we would have said that there is no provision of acceptance but that question does not, arise so we will not deal with it further. Result is that the impugned order dated, 7th of February, 1986 is hereby quashed and it is declared that the petitioner continues to be in service with the respondent-bank. However, in view of the facts of the present case, parties are directed to bear their own costs of the present proceedings.";