SANJAY KUMAR PRASAD Vs. PUNJAB NATIONAL BANK

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The delinquent officer who is the appellant has suffered the penalty of removal from service in a domestic inquiry constituted under Regulation 6.3 of the Punjab National Bank Officer Employees' (Discipline and Appeal) Regulations, 1977 (in short, PNB Regulations). He approached the writ Court in WP(S) No. 3326 of 2020 after the statutory appeal filed by him under Regulation 17 of the PNB Regulations was dismissed vide order dtd. 25/6/2020 by the Appellate Authority who is the Managing Director and CEO, Human Resource Management Division, HO, New Delhi.

(2.) Before the writ Court, a preliminary objection as regards maintainability of the writ petition on the ground of lack of territorial jurisdiction of this High Court was raised by the Punjab National Bank (in short, 'PNB') with reference to the judgment in "ONGC v. Utpal Kumar Basu" (1994) 4 SCC 711 and an order dtd. 26/2/2019 passed by this Court in WP(S) No. 4078 of 2017.

(3.) The issue of maintainability of the writ petition has been elaborately dealt with by the writ Court with reference to the rival submissions and the judgments in "Om Prakash Srivastava v. Union of India" (2006) 6 SCC 207 and "Shanti Devi v. Union of India" (2020) 10 SCC 766 which has referred to "Navinchandra N. Majithia v. State of Maharashtra" (2000) 7 SCC 640 and "Election Commission, Election Commission, India v. Saka Venkata Rao ." AIR 1953 SC 210.