The petitioner, Mr.Pai, has challenged the legality of the order dated 03.12.2014, passed by the Controlling Authority under the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972 and Assistant Labour Commissioner (Central), whereby, the learned Controlling Authority has dismissed the petitioner’s application under Section 7 (4) of the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972 (for short ‘the Act’).

2. Briefly, the facts of the case are that the petitioner had joined the service of Vijaya Bank, respondent No.1 on 06.12.1971 as a Clerk. Due to his hard work and honesty, he was promoted from time to time. In November 1999 he was last promoted in the cadre of Senior Manager in Middle Management Scale-III. However, while working in the regional office of the Bank at Hubli, on 13.05.2008, the petitioner was served with a chargesheet, wherein certain allegations were made regarding irregularities committed by him while he was working as Senior Branch Manager at Bijapur Branch of the Bank. After holding a departmental enquiry, by an order dated 04.05.2009, the petitioner was dismissed from the service. Aggrieved by the said dismissal order, the petitioner preferred a departmental appeal. However, by an order dated 22.09.2010, the appellate authority of the Bank dismissed the appeal. Therefore, the petitioner filed a writ petition challenging both the dismissal order dated 04.05.2009, and the order dated 22.09.2010 before this Court, namely WP No. 16150/2011. The writ petition is presently pending before this Court.

3. After the petitioner was dismissed from his service, the petitioner has not been paid his gratuity amount. Therefore, the petitioner filed an application under Section 7 of the Act before the Controlling Authority. The petitioner claimed that he is entitled to the gratuity amount of Rs.4,53,953/- alongwith interest at the rate of 12% p.a. However, by an order dated 24.05.2012, the Controlling Authority dismissed the said application mainly on the ground that the petitioner’s claim for gratuity was premature as he had challenged his dismissal order before this Court by filing the aforementioned writ petition.

4. Meanwhile, the petitioner crossed the age of superannuation. With the changed circumstances, as he has crossed the age of superannuation, the petitioner filed fresh application under Section 7 of the Act before the Controlling Authority. However, even this application was dismissed by the Controlling Authority by the order dated 03.12.2014. Hence, the present petition before this Court.

5. The learned Counsel for the respondent No.1 Mr. P. Udayashankar Rai, has raised a preliminary objection before this Court, namely that under Section 7(7) of the Act, an alternative remedy has been provided to a person who is aggrieved by any order passed by the Controlling Authority under Section 7(4) of the Act. Since the petitioner is aggrieved by an order passed by the Controlling Authority under Section 7(4) of the Act, the petitioner should have availed the alternative remedy by filing an appeal before the Appellate Authority, but he has failed to do so. Therefore, the present writ petition is not maintainable before this Court because of the availability of efficacious and alternative remedy.

6. On the other hand, Mr. S. Vittal Shetty, the learned Counsel for the petitioner, has relied on the case of T. Prashanth Shetty Vs The Chairman and Managing Director, Vijaya Bank and Another (WP No. 9461/2015 decided by this Court on 07.06.2016) and has pleaded that in similar situation as of the present writ petition, the same preliminary objection had been raised by the Counsel for Vijaya Bank. In the said writ petition, this Court had clearly opined that the bar to maintainability of writ jurisdiction in a writ petition is a self imposed restriction upon the power of High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. Moreover, this Court had rejected the contention and had entertained the writ petition. Therefore, the preliminary objection deserves to