Vineet Saran, J. - (1.) The petitioner was appointed as a Clerk in the District Cooperative Federation Ltd., Kanpur Nagar in the year 1972. Thereafter in the year 2002 he was instructed to run Wheat Purchase Centre at Rampur in Kanpur Nagar. On certain irregularities having been found in the working of the petitioner, the respondent No. 5, Sushil Kumar Tiwari, who was the Incharge Secretary of the District Co-operative Federation Ltd., Kanpur Nagar, passed order of dismissal of the petitioner on 20.5.2003. Aggrieved by the said order the petitioner has filed this writ petition for quashing the dismissal order dated 20.5.2003 as well as for a direction to the respondents to treat the petitioner in service and pay him his salary month by month and also arrears of salary with effect from 1.1.1993.
(2.) I have heard Sri M. P. Gupta, learned counsel appearing for the petitioner and Sri Ashok Kumar Srivastava, learned counsel appearing for the contesting respondent-District Co-operative Federation and have perused the record.
(3.) The main grounds raised by the learned counsel for the petitioner challenging the impugned order can be summarized as under : (i) the impugned order has been passed by respondent No. 5 as Incharge Secretary of the Federation. The respondent No. 5 having been appointed as Incharge Secretary on 28.2.2002, as per Rule 127 of the U.P. Cooperative Societies Rules, 1968 read with Regulation 5 of the U.P. Cooperative Societies Employees' Service Regulations, 1975, on expiry of the period of six months, i.e., on 28.8.2002, the said respondent No. 5 ceased to remain as Incharge Secretary and thus the impugned order passed by him on 20.5.2003 was without jurisdiction ; (ii) the respondent No. 6 not being an employee of the Federation (as he was an advocate) was not competent to be appointed as Enquiry Officer. Further, in view of the fact that the petitioner had raised objections regarding his impartiality in conducting the enquiry, he ought to have been changed. As such the entire enquiry proceedings, on the basis of which the impugned order has been passed, was bad in law ; (iii) the Committee of Management of the District Cooperative Federation Ltd. was the appointing authority of the petitioner and as such it was only by the resolution of the Committee of Management that the petitioner could have been dismissed from service and not by the order of the Incharge Secretary ; and (iv) under Regulation 87 of the Regulations of 1975, prior concurrence of respondent No. 2, U.P. Cooperative Institutional Service Board ought to have been obtained before passing of the dismissal order and in the absence of the same, the impugned order is liable to be set aside.;