TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2020 (1) TMI 1446
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....erged as one of the successful candidates for being appointed as Meter Cooli/Chaukidar. Owing to subsequent discovery of certain irregularities in the selection process, UPPCL cancelled these selections on 03.11.1978 and consequently terminated services of all appointees on 07.11.1978. 4. Shyam Behari Lal, another successful candidate whose services too had been terminated, promptly approached the jurisdictional High Court which allowed his writ petition on 26.10.1989 observing that no reasons had been assigned for the termination. UPPCL unsuccessfully filed an intracourt appeal, and thereafter approached this Court by way of Civil Appeal No. 7123 of 1993 (U.P. State Electricity Board and Others v. Shyam Behari Lal). The said appeal was allowed vide order dated 22.11.1993 with an observation that the reason for termination was 'writ large' on the order itself, namely, "cancellation of result of selection of operating staff", and the matter was accordingly remitted to the High Court for disposal on merits. 5. Thereafter, a Division Bench of the High Court considered Shyam Behari Lal's case and held that though the writ petition was liable to be dismissed on merits, however, co....
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....ivil Appeal both against the Division Bench's order dated 29.04.2016, as well as the contempt proceedings initiated before the High Court by the Respondent. UPPCL has painstakingly urged that there is no correlation in law or any similarity in facts between the case of Shyam Behari Lal and the present case of Ram Gopal. 9. On the other hand, counsel for the Respondent defends the judgment of the Division Bench, maintaining that both Shyam Behari Lal and Ram Gopal were recruited through the same office memorandum, and their services were terminated through the same order. It was urged that what holds true for one candidate must necessarily also hold true for the other; and it would be iniquitous and unequal to give rise to a situation where similarly placed persons end up in vastly different situations. ANALYSIS 10. Having heard learned counsel for the parties at a considerable length, we find that the impugned order of the High Court is legally untenable and cannot be sustained for at least three glaring reasons. i) Erroneous conclusion of termination order being non-speaking 11. First, the Division Bench's finding that "no reason has been assigned in the order of ca....
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....e delay in filing writ petition 14. Finally, the prolonged delay of many years ought not to have been overlooked or condoned. Services of the Respondent were terminated within months of his appointment, in 1978. Statedly, the Respondent made a representation and served UPPCL with a legal notice in 1982, however such feeble effort does little to fill the gap between when the cause of action arose and he chose to seek its redressal (in 1990). 15. Seen from a different perspective also, it is clear that the Respondent has shown little concern to the settled legal tenets. Even a civil suit challenging termination of services, if filed by the Respondent, would have undoubtedly been barred by limitation in 1990. In a similar situation where the appellant belatedly challenged the promotion of his junior(s), this Court in P.S. Sadasivaswamy v. State of Tamil Nadu (1975) 1 SCC 152, held as follows: "2. ... if the appellant was aggrieved by it he should have approached the Court even in the year 1957, after the two representations made by him had failed to produce any result. One cannot sleep over the matter and come to the Court questioning that relaxation in the year 1971. .....
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....were diligently agitating their rights, this Court observed that: "27. ...It becomes an obligation to take into consideration the balance of justice or injustice in entertaining the petition or declining it on the ground of delay and laches. It is a matter of great significance that at one point of time equity that existed in favour of one melts into total insignificance and paves the path of extinction with the passage of time." 18. We may hasten to add that these principles may not, however, apply to judgments which are delivered inrem. The State and its instrumentalities are expected In such category of cases to themselves extend the benefit of a judicial pronouncement to all similarly placed employees without forcing each person to individually knock the doors of courts. This distinction between operation of delay and laches to judgments delivered inrem and in personam, is lucidly captured in State of Uttar Pradesh v. Arvind Kumar Srivastava (2015) 1 SCC 347, laying down that: " 22.1. The normal rule is that when a particular set of employees is given relief by the court, all other identically situated persons need to be treated alike by extending that bene....