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Gujarat High Court
Judgename :C.K.THAKKER, S.D.Pandit
N.A.VASAVA - Appellant
Versus
CHIEF REFINERY CO-ORDINATOR,indian OIL CORPORATION LIMITED - Respondent
L.P.A. 979 of 1996
Decided On : 07/09/1997
It must be remembered that resignation means the spontaneous relinquishment of ones own right in relation to an office. A resignation may also be prospective to be operative from future date and in that event it would take effect from the date it communicates. No doubt resignation by an employee would however normally require to be accepted by the employer in order to be effective and it can be in certain circumstances the employer would be justified in refusing to accept the employees resignation. Now, admittedly by the letter of 22.6.92 present apellant- petitioner had informed the respondent corporation that his resignation was to be effective after 30 days.
Now when in that letter he had mentioned that his resignation was to be effective from the 30th day from the receipt of the said letter, it will have to be presumed that he had intention to continue in service till that date on which his resignation was to become effective. When it has to be presumed that he was to be continued in service till 30 days, it was not open for the corporation to act upon the said resignation letter till that date. Merely because the corporation happened to accept his resignation letter by writing a letter of 3.7.92 it could not be said that the resignation has become finalized on account of the said acceptance by the corporation. Till 30th day the respondent had no jurisdiction to accept the resignation to relieve him.
[Para 7]
Thus in view of the discussion Court hold that in view of the letter dated 16.7.92 the resignation letter sent by the petitioner dated 22.6.1992 stood withdrawn and consequently it was not open for the respondent corporation to act upon the said letter and to relieve him on 21.7.92. We therefore, hold that the action of the respondent corporation in relieving the petitioner from his service on 21.7.92 was illegal and improper.
[Para 16]
(b) Letters Patent Appeal - Dismissal of petition against illegal acceptance of resignation by Single Judge - Delay of two years - Petitioner only a Class IV employee belonging to S.T. - Considering the facts of the case court held, that delay in filing petition cannot be said to be grossly inadequate so as to reject his legitimate claim.
No doubt the petitioner had come before the court after two years. But it is necessary to mention here that even the learned Single Judge had not felt that the petition of the petitioner should be rejected on the ground of delay and laches. The material on record clearly shows that the petitioner had already made representation to the respondent corporation through his Labour Union by the letter dated 3.9.92 and in response to the said letter, the respondents corporation had not informed the petitioner anything in writing. The petitioner had also approached the respondent corporation through the local MP and only after all these attempts to convince the respondent had failed, he had come to the court. The petitioner in this case is only a Class 4 employee and he belongs to Scheduled Tribe. Therefore, in the circumstances the delay in filing the petition could not be said to be grossly inadequate so as to reject him claim.
[Para 17]
( 1 ) WE have heard the learned Counsel for the appellant as well as the learned Counsel for the respondent at length and with their consent we are finally disposing of this appeal by this judgment. Mr. R. P. Bhatt waives notice of admission.
( 2 ) SHRI N. A. Vasava, the unsuccessful petitioner in Special Civil Application no. 11711 of 1994 has come in appeal before us against the dismissal of his petition by the learned single Judge by his order dated 25-7-1996.
( 3 ) PRESENT appellant-petitioner was appointed as a peon on 20-5-1989 and he joined his duty on 5-7-1989. He was fond of playing cricket and also played cricket and had an ambition to come up as a cricketer. He had made representation to his employer the Indian Oil Corporation (hereinafter referred to as the Corporation) to give him certain concession in order to pursue his ambition to become a good cricketer and to come up in life as a cricketer. It seems that all these requests made by him, as per his claim, were not accepted and therefore, he wrote a letter on 22-6-1992 tendering his resignation and requesting the Corporation to relieve him from the job on completion of 30 days. After the receipt of the said letter, the respondent- corporation issued a letter dated 3-7-1992 informing the appellant-petitioner that the resignation letter dated 22-6-1992 was accepted and that he would be relieved from the services of the Corporation in the afternoon of 21-7-1992 subject to clearing of the dues of the Corporation. After the receipt of this letter, present petitioner wrote a letter dated 8-7-1992 informing the Corporation that he was very much grateful for accepting his resignation with effect from 21-7-1992 and had made a request to allow him to retain his official quarter for a period of one month from the date of his resignation. But thereafter on 16-7-1992 the appellant-petitioner sent a letter mentioning of withdrawing his resignation. Said letter reads as under :"i hereby withdraw my application of resignation which I have given on dated 22nd June 1992. Kindly consider with favour. "but in spite of the said letter of withdrawing the resignation the respondent- corporation vide letter dated 21-7-1992 relieved him from the services of the corporation with effect from 21-7-1992 (A. N. ). It seems that thereafter present appellant had made representation to the Corporation through his Labour Union to consider his case in view of the withdrawal of the letter dated 16-7-1992 and to reinstate him by Labour Unions letter dated 3-9-1992 but no action was taken on the said letter of the Labour Union. The petitioner had also tried through local M. P. to get reinstatement but he could not succeed. Thereafter, he has come before this court by filing a petition under Art. 226 of the Constitution in the month of August 1995 and he sought a writ of Mandamus for holding and declaring that the action of accepting the resignation of the petitioner is illegal and unjust and to direct the respondent to reinstate the petitioner with all consequential benefits as if he was in service all throughout.
( 4 ) THE claim of the petitioner was resisted by the respondent- Corporation by filing affidavit-in-reply. In the said affidavit-in-reply it was contended that the petitioner has suppressed the material fact of the letter dated 3-7-1992 written by the Corporation to the petitioner informing about the acceptance of his resignation as per his request and by deliberately suppressing of said fact, he has tried to mislead the Court and on that ground alone the petition should be dismissed. It was further contended that after the said letter on 3-7-1992 the petitioner had also informed by his letter of 8-7-1992 that he was thankful to the management for accepting his resignation. Therefore, it was not open for the appellant-petitioner to withdraw the resignation by a subsequent letter dated 16-7-1992. It is contended that the letter dated 16-7-1992 purporting to withdraw the res
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