A. V. SRINIVASA REDDY, J.

( 1 ) THE petitioner has filed this writ petition praying for issuing of a writ in the nature of mandamus directing the respondents to forthwith open the sealed cover and issue consequential order of promotion to the petitioner in Senior Management Scale IV in the service of first respondent Bank. In the course of arguments in order to highlight certain aspects of his case Sri Ramadass, learned Counsel for the respondent, submitted to the Court a bunch of papers relating to the case on hand, a copy of which has not been furnished to the petitioner as they are confidential documents. Some of the facts narrated hereunder are obtained from those documents and, therefore, they do not bear reference to the petition averments or the Annexures produced along with the writ petition. The learned Counsel for the petitioner also had not objected to the Court looking into those documents and relying on their contents, if need be.

( 2 ) THE facts leading to this writ petition, briefly stated, are as under: (i) The petitioner is a Scale III Officer. When he was working as branch Manager at Gandhi Bazaar branch of the Bank in Bangalore, he was served with a letter as per Annexure-D, dated 19-5-1995, alleging certain irregularities against him. The petitioner submitted his detailed explanation as per Annexure-E to the writ petition on 15-7-1995. On 31-1-1996, as per Annexure-F, the General Manager administered censure upon consideration of the explanation offered by the petitioner and the matter was closed. (ii) On 19-11-1996 the Ministry of Finance, Government of India is stated to have received an anonymous letter. The said letter was forwarded to Reserve Bank of India for looking into the same. The Reserve bank of India, in turn forwarded the letter to the respondent-Bank calling for its remarks. On receipt of the first respondent-Bank's remark, reserve Bank nominated one Sri S. Sampath, AGM of the Bank to examine the matter and submit a report. On receipt of the report from sri S. Sampath, the RBI forwarded extracts from the report to the Vijaya bank by letter dated December 20, 1997 to re-examine the issue of irregularities committed by the petitioner afresh. The letter was addressed to the Chief Vigilance Officer of the respondent-Bank. On 15-6-1998 the Chief Vigilance Officer of Vijaya Bank submitted his memorandum to the Board of Directors of the Bank furnishing reply to the allegations and seeking for directions from the Board as to what should be done next. The Board directed the Vijaya Bank by its resolution bearing No. C-80/98, dated 15-6-1998 to re-examine the issue. (iii) Consequent upon the resolution by the Board dated 18-08-1998, a committee was formed and the matter was gone into once again by the committee. The committee submitted a detailed report to the Board on 24-12-1998 inter alia stating that it would not be appropriate to disagree with the decision already taken while concluding the matter. The Board, on examination of the report of the committee felt that a deeper probe into the acts of commission and omission in several accounts some of which are in NPA category is called for and also resolved that disciplinary proceedings have to be initiated against the petitioner. The resolution of the Board was brought to the notice of Deputy General Manager and Disciplinary Authority. The Deputy General Manager and Disciplinary authority opined by his letter dated 16-6-1999 that initiation of disciplinary proceedings afresh is not legally tenable.

( 3 ) WHEN the matter was pending thus, the Departmental Promotion committee ('dpc' for short) met to consider the promotion of 13 officials to the Senior Management Grade, Scale IV and the petitioner was also one of the candidates for promotion. The promotion of the officers was ordered on 19-6-1999. One post was kept vacant and the result of the interview conducted by the DPC in respect of the petitioner was put in a sealed cover pending the outcome of the

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