(Per V.M. Kanade, J.)

1. By this appeal, the Appellant is challenging the judgment and order passed by the learned Single Judge dated 17/01/2012 whereby the learned Single Judge summarily dismissed the Writ Petition and confirmed the order of the Presiding Officer, College Tribunal who had dismissed the appeal filed by the Appellant herein challenging her removal from service by order dated 21/05/2009 passed by the Management. For the sake of convenience, the Appellant shall be refereed to as “Petitioner” and the Respondents shall be referred to as “Respondents”.

2. The services of the Petitioner were terminated pursuant to the order of dismissal passed by the Management dated 21/05/2009 which accepted the report of the Inquiry Officer dated 23/03/2009 and dated 30/3/2009.

3. The grievance of the Petitioner in a nutshell is that charge Principal of the College one Mr. A.K. Inamdar and Mr. V.B. Tiwari who was also working as Professor in the said College felt threatened after the Petitioner passed her NET/SET examination and anticipated that soon thereafter the Petitioner would be eligible to be appointed as Principal of the College and, as a result, Mr. Inamdar would not be confirmed as Principal and, secondly, there were past disputes and differences between Mr. A.K. Inamdar and V.B. Tiwari on the one hand and the Petitioner on the other hand as a writ of which they several false and bogus criminal complaints as well as complaints in the University against the Petitioner and, as a result of the said animosity, had initiated inquiry against her. The second grievance of the Petitioner is that the Inquiry Officer committed breach of principles of natural justice and without giving proper opportunity to the Petitioner filed adverse reports against her. It is also her case that he was biased and he had already prejudged the issue which was pending before him and, thirdly, it is contended that without production of the alleged bogus and fabricated B.A. Decree Certificate, the Inquiry Officer came to the conclusion that the said Certificate was bogus only on the basis of the letter which was purportedly written by Registrar of Kakatia University and later on it transpired that such a letter was never received by the police or any other authority and on the basis of such letter which was not duly proved, the Inquiry Officer had given adverse reports. Lastly, it is submitted that the Inquiry Officer submitted the report on 23/03/2009 and the Notice of Motion filed by the Petitioner came up before the Division Bench of this Court on 24/03/2009 on which date, Division Bench of this Court gave direction to the Inquiry Officer to permit the Petitioner to cross-examine the two witnesses and thereafter to consider the cross-examination and submit report. The grievance of the Petitioner is that though the report was already tendered by the Inquiry Officer on 23/03/2009, this fact was not brought to the notice of the Division Bench of this Court and secondly when this fact was informed to the Inquiry Officer he did not give any further time to the Petitioner to cross-examine the two witnesses and completed the formality of permitting her to cross-examine the witnesses on 30/03/2009 and, on the same day, informed the Management that he would not like to change the report dated 23/3/2009 by ignoring the cross-examination. In this background, it will be necessary to briefly take into consideration brief facts which are relevant for the purpose of deciding this appeal.

4. As pointed out earlier, there is a chequered history of disputes between the Petitioner on the one hand and the Acting/in-charge Principal Mr. A.K. Inamdar and Mr. V.B. Tiwari on the other hand and, for this purpose, it is necessary to give brief chronology of events.

Chronology of events:

(1) The Petitioner appeared for her B.A. Examination in 1988 from Kakatia University by attending Progressive Classes, Thane (West).

(2) The Petitioner submitted the original B.A. De