N.K.Mehrotra, J. - (1.) The petitioner, Sone Lal Sankhwar, was an Executive Engineer in U.P. Power Corporation Ltd. He was compulsorily retired by the respondent on 22.4.2002. He has filed this writ petition for quashing the order 22.4.2002 retiring him compulsorily. He was promoted thrice and the third promotion was granted on 26.11.2001. He put in 24 years of service and according to him his annual confidential report has been good and excellent and his integrity has been certified throught-out. According to the petitioner, the only blot in his career are the censure entries dated 23.4.1991, 11.12.1991 and 9.7.21001 and against all these censure entries representations are pending before respondent No. 1. The censure entries are of minor nature. These censure entries were ignored at the time of his promotion in the time scale vide order 26.11.2001. He has challenged the order of compulsory retirement on the grounds that his censure entries prior to the date of promotion cannot be considered for retiring him compulsorily because the promotion has been given after careful assessment of service record, his annual confidential report has been good and excellent; representation against the censure entries are pending before the respondent ; the power of compulsory retirement has been used for punishing the petitioner on account of censure entries; the Screening Committee considered the cases of 19 officers and he alone was chosen for compulsory retirement; the other Engineers, whose promotions were delayed and whose records were inferior, were not retired and this pick and choose method is discriminatory; the censure entries, which were quashed, have also been taken into consideration and he has been singled out for compulsory retirement only to avoid his promotion as Superintending Engineer.
(2.) We have heard Sri Rakesh Pandey, learned Counsel for the petitioner and Sri Anil Mehrotra, learned Standing Counsel for the respondents.
(3.) Learned Standing Counsel for U.P. Power Corporation Ltd., has raised preliminary objections about the maintainability of the writ petition on the ground of alternative remedy. Since remedy under Article 226 of the Constitution of India is discretionary remedy and the availability in the relief in Service Tribunal is not a bar to the jurisdiction of this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the preliminary objection raised by the learned Standing Counsel for the respondent cannot be sustained.;