- (1.) This appeal directed against an appellate decision and a revisional application in the alternative have been heard together. It will be necessary to refer to the material facts in the background to appreciate the real dispute between the parties as raised in this appeal and the application in the alternative and decide the same.
(2.) The first respondent, Tridib Nath Sanyal, was an employee of the appellant, Oil & Natural Gas Commission, a body corporate under the Oil & Natural Gas Commission Act, 1959 (hereinafter referred to as the 'said act'). The said respondent (hereinafter referred to as the plaintiff) instituted Title Suit No. 17 of 1971 in the First Court of the learned Subordinate Judge, Alipore for a declaration that an order dated January 4, 1971 passed on behalf of the commission under regulation 14(5) of the Leave Regulation 1968 directing the plaintiff to be deemed to have resigned from his appointment and, as such, no longer in service, is bad, illegal, ultra vires and that the plaintiff is still continuing in service and is entitled to salary since July 9, 1970. In this suit, the present appellant was the first defendant (hereinafter referred to as the defendant) and two of the officers or the appellant, namely, Senior Deputy Manager, Port Canning Project, Oil & Natural Gas Commission and General Manager, Eastern Region, Oil & Natural Gas Commission, were the defendants Nos. 2 and 3. This suit was contested by all the three defendants including the present appellant by filing written statement. It is not in dispute that in entering appearance, the appellant did so through an advocate Shri Raghu Nath Chatterjee, in whose favour a Vakalatnama was executed by the then Chairman of the Commission. The plaintiff succeeded at the trial and the suit was decreed on contest by the learned Subordinate Judge by the judgment and decree dated May 31, 1979.
(3.) Feeling aggrieved the defendant (the present appellant before us) preferred an appeal being Title Appeal No. 731 of 1979 before the Court of appeal below. There is no dispute again that the Memorandum in the said appeal was presented on behalf of the defendant by Shri Raghu Nath Chatterjee, the same advocate though in so doing he purported to act on a fresh Vakalatnama, annexed to the Memorandum which was executed in his favour by one Anil Kumar Chakraborti, a Deputy Director of the Commission on behalf of the defendant-appellant. In that appeal the defendant-appellant filed an application for stay and the notice of that application being served on the plaintiff-respondent (hereinafter referred to as the plaintiff), he raised a dispute at the hearing of the stay application that the appeal as presented was not maintainable in law, in view of the fact that the memorandum had been presented by Sri Raghunath Chatterjee, on the authority of an invalid power because Anil Kumar Chakraborti, the Deputy Director of the Commission was not authorized to execute the Vakalatnama on behalf of the Commission. The learned Judge of the court of appeal below in granting the stay so prayed for did not decide the said dispute but reserved the same for consideration at the time of hearing of the appeal by observing, "The question is whether the Vakalatmama is a defective one and, if so whether the said defect can be removed, is a question which, if agitated, will be considered in due course. For the purpose of the instant application, the Court will proceed on the assumption that there is a Vakalatnama before this Court.";