Gourish Mandal v. Punjab National Bank And ORS.

28.03.2025 Court No.23 DL - 8 (PP) In the High Court at Calcutta Constitutional Writ Jurisdiction Appellate Side WPA 28201 of 2024 Gourish Mandal versus Punjab National Bank & Ors.

Mr. Nanda Dulal Bhattacharyya .... for the petitioner.

Ms. Parna Roy Choudhury ....for PNB.

The petitioner was an employee of erstwhile United Bank of India (in short, 'UBI') which is now on having merged known as Punjab National Bank (in short, 'PNB'). The petitioner was subjected to a disciplinary proceedings and a final order dated 10th November, 2023 was passed therein.

By the said order, a major penalty was imposed on the petitioner by which the petitioner was brought down to a basic pay to a lower stage in scale of pay by two stages for a period of 2 years with effect from 10.11.2023 as per clause 6(e) of the Amendment to 11th Bipartite Settlement dated 11.11.2020.

The petitioner had challenged this order by preferring a statutory appeal therefrom under the extant rules. The appeal has been filed on 13th December, 2023, but has not been heard since then, though the

Rules mandate that the same has to be heard and disposed of by 2 months from the date of filing. After hearing the parties and considering the materials on record, I find that justice will be sub-served if I direct the Appellate Authority of PNB to dispose of the appeal preferred by the petitioner in accordance with law and by observing the provisions of natural justice by 31st May, 2025.

I make it clear that I have not entered into the merits of the appeal and the Appellate Authority shall be free to decide the same independently without being influenced in any manner by any observation made in this order.

Nothing further remains to be adjudicated in this writ petition. The same is disposed of accordingly. Since I have not called for any affidavits, the allegations contained in the writ petition are deemed to have not been admitted by the respondents.

Urgent photostat certified copy of this order, if applied for, be given to the parties upon compliance of all necessary formalities.

(Arindam Mukherjee, J.)