SRI KALPATARU MONDAL Vs. SAGAR GRAMIN BANK

JUDGEMENT

(1.) All these appeals were assigned to this Bench and were directed against the judgment and Order dated June 14, 2002 passed by a learned Judge of the Writ Court on the basis of some concessions made before the learned Judge by the learned Counsel appearing for Sagar Gramin Bank (hereinafter referred to as the said 'Bank').

(2.) By the said judgment the learned Judge of the Writ Court was, inter alia, pleased to allow the writ petition and was further pleased to quash and set aside the promotional process which resulted from the Circular of the Bank dated March 31, 1988 and directed the private Respondents to be reverted to their original posts. The learned Judge directed the Bank to initiate a further selection process in accordance with the guidelines suggested by the Apex Court and directed the said promotional process to be on seniority basis within a period of two months from the communication of the order of the learned Judge. The directions given by the learned Judge, however, were subsequently stayed by the Division Bench of this High Court.

(3.) Two sets of private Respondents filed two appeals. Of those two sets of private Respondents Sri Kalpataru Mondal, Sri Amarendranath Biswas, Sri Sachindranath Dhar and Sri Binoy Kumar Sarkar filed M.A.T. 2152 of 2002 and their main grievance was that they were not served with the copy of the Writ Petition nor was their case heard by the learned Judge of the Writ Court but by the judgment of that learned Judge they have been reverted. These facts have been specifically stated by them in para. 2 of the stay petition. These clear averments in para. 2 of the stay Petition could not be controverted before this Court either by the writ Petitioners or by the Bank Authorities, The other set of private Respondents namely, Sri Subrata Ghosh Hazra, Sri Paritosh Kumar Ghosh, Sri Gautam Basu, Sri Tapan Jyoti Paul, Sri Dipak Kumar Chattopadhyay, Sri Nirmal Chandra Das, Sri Swapan Das, Sri Nimai Chand Sarkar, Sri Nitish Sinha, Sri Pradip Kumar Bhowmick, Sri Tapan Kanti Majumdar, Sri Dilip Kumar Dhar, Sri Mrinal Kanti Gangopadhyay and Sri Dilip Kumar Bandyopadhyay filed an appeal which is numbered as F.M.A. 571 of 2002. In that appeal the main grievance of the Appellants was that they were not properly served with the copy of the writ petition inasmuch as they were not served at the residential addresses but they were alle -gedly served by serving on the General Manager, Sagar Gramin Bank at 190 Ultadanga Main Road. This, according to them, is not proper service. As such, they came to know about the pendency of the writ petition at a very later stage and they could enter appearance only at the fag end of the hearing of the writ petition after they came to know from some of the Office staff who were working at the Head Office of the Bank that a writ petition was pending against them. It is also stated before this Court and it has also been averred in the stay petition that the learned Advocate of those private Respondents had no copy of the writ petition as such they could not file any affidavit -in -opposition before the learned trial Judge. This aspect of the case, which has been made out by them, has not been controverted. But from the judgment under appeal it appears that their Counsel was heard. Whether the prayer was made on behalf of the Appellants for filing an affidavit -in -opposition to the writ petition before the learned Judge, does not appear from the records of the case. But the fact remains that they were not served at the residential addresses and they were served in such a manner which might have caused them substantial prejudice in defending their case before the learned trial Judge. This possibly cannot be doubted.