The appointment of an Enquiring Officer who is a member of a rival Union creates a reasonable apprehension of bias and violates the principles of natural justice, rendering the enquiry proceedings invalid.

( 1 ) THE petitioner is attached to the Bank of India as a Clerk since December 1969. He is also the General Secretary of the Bank of India National Employees' Congress, Registered under the Trade Union Act.

( 2 ) BECAUSE of his Trade Union activities the respondents maintain an attitude of anger towards him.

( 3 ) THE said respondents on 25. 1. 80 issued a charge-sheet upon the petitioner for certain acts of alleged misconduct and for the purpose of holding a disciplinary proceeding on the basis of the said charge-sheet appointed the respondent No. 2 as the Enquiring as well as the punishing authority, though the said respondent No. 2 belongs to a rival Union, and though the charge-sheet was issued by the respondent No. 1, the Regional Manager, he was made the appellate authority.

( 4 ) ACCORDING to the petitioner the entire act, of the respondents in issuing a frivolous charge-sheet against him, appointing the respondent No. 2 as the Enquiring as well as the punishing authority and also appointing the respondent No. 1 as the appellate authority is malicious and the sole object behind such act is to punish the petitioner in order to curb his Trade Union activities.

( 5 ) IN the aforesaid circumstances, the petitioner has come up before this Court challenging the charge-sheet and the proposed enquiry proceeding.

( 6 ) IT, appears that while issuing the rule on 21. 2. 80 this Court authorised the respondents to proceed with the enquiry but not to pass the final order except with the leave of the Court or until the disposal of the rule. The respondents were further given liberty to appoint any other person as the enquiring authority if they were so advised.

( 7 ) THE respondents in their affidavit-in-opposition have controverted all the material averments contained in the writ petition and the petitioner has also filed an affidavit-in-reply.

( 8 ) APPEARING on behalf of the petitioner, Mr. Ranjit Mukherjee, the learned Advocate contended inter alia that the charge-sheet was issued with mala fide intention and ulterior motive in order to teach the petitioner a lesson and with the said object in view the respondent No. 2 was appointed the enquiring as well as the disciplinary authority, who in the past belonged to a rival Union. As regard to the charge-sheet Mr. Mukherjee's contention was that it is vague, ambiguous, indefinite and devoid of particulars and that it was also issued with a closed mind.

( 9 ) ALL the aforesaid contentions raised on behalf of the petitioner, were seriously controverted by Mr. Prasanta Mukherjee, the learned Advocate representing the respondents.

( 10 ) COMING first to the charge-sheet (Annexure 'd'), it appears that the allegations against the petitioner are (1) he does not report for duty in time; (2) he on several occasions, was orally instructed by the Manager of the Bank to report for duty in time and to do his duty during the working hours, but in vain and (3) he was again instructed by the Manager by his Memo. dated 3. 2. 79 to be punctual in his attendance and regular in his work, but despite such specific instructions he remained unpunctual and did not attend to his duties.

( 11 ) IT is true that all the particulars in details regarding the aforesaid charges have not been mentioned in the charge-sheet but that, in my view, does not make the charges vague and indefinite. The nature of the charges clearly indicates that according to the respondents the petitioner is a habitual late attender and also habitually lacks devotion to his duties. And that being so, specific instances of such late attendance and nonperformance of duties have not been cited.

( 12 ) IN this connection reference may be made to Annexure 'e', which is the petitioner's reply to the Memo. , dated 3-2-79 issued by the Manager of the Bank directing the petitioner to be punctual in his attendance and to by regular in his work (Annexure 'd' ). Significantly, in the said reply the petitioner has nowhere sp