- (1.) By means of this writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution the petitioner has come up before this Court against the order dated 5th February 1988 lowering the petitioner from M.M.G. Scale II to J.M.C. Scale-I and fixing his basic pay at the minimum of that scale.
(2.) The petitioner is an employee in Allahabad Bank which is one of the nationalised banks. It appears that on the basis of certain complaints the petitioner was served with a charge-sheet and was suspended pending disciplinary enquiry. The disciplinary enquiry took place and on its conclusion the Enquiry Officer submitted his report. The disciplinary authority vide order dated 30th June, 1987 imposed penalty of lowering the petitioner down to his basic pay by eight stages from Rs. 2625/- to Rs. 1825/- per month. On 30th Dec.1987 the Reviewing Authority served a notice on the petitioner as to why a major penalty under Regulation 4(e) of the Allahabad Bank Officer Employees (Discipline & Appeal) Regulations, 1976 be not imposed on him. The petitioner submitted an explanation to the notice. Subsequently, the impugned order dated 5th Feb.1988 was passed and that is why the petitioner has come up before this Court.
(3.) Sri V.C. Mishra, the learned counsel for the petitioner raised the following arguments in support of his contention :. (i) That the impugned order of punishment suffers from patent error of law on the face of record as the Reviewing authority before initiating proceedings for review of the earlier order, did not give any opportunity to the petitioner. (ii) That the Reviewing Authority was the Executive Director and not the Managing Director and, therefore, he had no power or jurisdiction to review the earlier punishment awarded to the petitioner. (iii) That the petitioner was not served with enquiry report as required under Regulation 9 of the Regulations. (iv) That the earlier order of penalty having been set aside by the Reviewing Authority, the petitioner was entitled to his salary till the second order of punishment was passed. We have heard also the learned counsel for the respondent. We deal with the arguments of the learned counsel for the petitioner in seriatim.;