An employee has the right to withdraw an offer of voluntary retirement before it becomes effective, and the refusal to permit such withdrawal must be justified and reasonable.

F.M. Reis, J.

Heard Mr. V.A. Lawande, learned Counsel appearing for the Petitioner and Mr. Y.V. Nadkarni, learned Counsel appearing for the Respondents.

2. The above Writ Petition, inter alia, seeks for a writ or direction to permit the Petitioner to withdraw his offer of voluntarily retirement dated 21.02.2008 in terms of the communication dated 09.05.2008. A further relief sought by the Petitioner is to set aside the Communications dated 14.05.2008 and 31.05.2008 issued by the Respondent no. 2.

3. Briefly, the facts of the case as contended by the Petitioner are that the Petitioner was working as a Senior Clerk with the Respondent no. 1 and submitted an application for voluntarily retirement on 21.02.2008. In terms of the Regulations, according to the Petitioner, the notice period for voluntary retirement is three months and the offer can be withdrawn within the said period of three months. The Respondents accepted the Petitioner's offer for voluntary retirement and the effective date of the retirement was fixed as 01.06.2008. It is further the contention of the Petitioner that in the meanwhile, M/s. Sahakar Urban Credit Co-operative Society called upon the Petitioner to pay an amount of Rs. 6,18,098/- on the ground that the Petitioner had stood surety to one Rauf Sheikh. The Petitioner accordingly had no other alternative but to withdraw the offer of voluntary retirement and, consequently, on 09.05.2008, the Petitioner withdrew the offer of voluntary retirement well before the expiry period of three months but, however, according to the Petitioner, the Respondent had refused to allow the Petitioner to withdraw the application for voluntary retirement. An Appeal was preferred before the Deputy Chairman of the Respondent no. 1 on 18.05.2008, which came to be rejected on 31.05.2008. As such, the Petitioner filed the above Writ Petition directing the Respondents to permit the Petitioner to withdraw the offer of voluntary retirement and also for reinstatement and back wages.

4. Upon hearing the learned Counsel appearing for the parties at length, the challenge in the above Writ Petition are two folds. The first challenge is on the refusal of the Respondent no. 1 to allow the withdrawal of the offer of voluntary retirement being unjustified and, as such, deserves to be quashed and set aside. The next grievance of the Petitioner is to direct the reinstatement and payment of his back wages. With regard to the first contention raised by Shri V.A. Lawande, learned Counsel appearing for the Petitioner, it would be appropriate to note the observations of the Apex Court in the Judgment reported in 1989 (Supp) 2 SCC 175 in the case of Punjab National Bank v. P.K. Mittal, at para 5 thus :

“We have given careful thought to this contention of the learned counsel and we are of the opinion that the High Court was right in the conclusion it reached. Clause (2) of Regulation 20 makes it incumbent on an officer of the bank, before resigning, to serve a notice in writing of such proposed resignation and the clause also makes it clear that the resignation will not be effective otherwise than on the expiry of three months from the service of such notice. There are two ways of interpreting this clause. One is that the resignation of an employee from service being a voluntary act on the part of an employee, he is entitled to choose the date with effect from which his resignation would be effective and give a notice to the employer accordingly. The only restriction is that the proposed date should not be less than three months from the date on which the notice is given of the proposed resignation. On this interpretation, the letter dated 21-1-1986 sent by the employee fully complied with the terms of this clause. Though the letter was written in January 1986 the employee gave more than three clear months’ notice and stated that he wished to resign with effect from 30-6-1986 and so the resignation would have become effective only on that date. The