By the Court—The petitioner, who was occupying the august office of Vice Chancellor of Chaudhary Charan Singh University, Meerut (hereinafter referred to as the University) has prayed for quashing the order dated 5.8.2005, passed by the Chancellor of the University, by which the petitioner has been removed from his office in exercise of the powers under the provisions of U.P. State Universities Act, 1973 (hereinafter called the Act 1973).

2. The facts and circumstances giving rise to this case are that the petitioner was appointed as a Vice-Chancellor of the University on 2.3.2003 for a period of three years. Upon receipt of certain complaints the Chancellor of the University initiated an inquiry against the petitioner in exercise of the powers conferred upon him under Section 12 (12) of the Act 1973. A charge-sheet dated 28/3/2005 was served upon the petitioner containing 15 charges. The petitioner filed a reply to the said charge-sheet on 25.4.2005. The Inquiry Officer submitted a report to the Chancellor on 7.6.2005. A show cause notice along with the inquiry report was served upon the petitioner on 9.6.2005 to which he submitted his reply on 22.7.2005. The impugned order of removal was then passed by the Chancellor on 5.8.2005, after consideration of the entire material on record including the reply of the petitioner.

3. Sri S.P. Gupta, learned Senior Counsel appearing for the petitioner has detailed his submissions against the impugned order pointing out that the inquiry was conducted in violation of principles of natural justice as the petitioner was never informed about any date in respect of holding the inquiry; no opportunity was given to the petitioner to cross-examine any witnesses; no opportunity was given to him to lead oral evidence; the documents which had been relied upon by the Inquiry Officer while preparing the report were not served upon the petitioner; large number of fresh complaints were made and the same were accepted by the Inquiry Officer at a belated stage; certain affidavits were filed before the Inquiry Officer, but copies were not served upon the petitioner; the Inquiry Officer acted in an arbitrary and mala fide manner and that the disciplinary authority passed the order without considering the reply to the show cause submitted by the petitioner. He, therefore, submitted that the order of the Chancellor was liable to be quashed.

4. On behalf of the respondents, Sri R.N. Singh, learned Senior Counsel appearing for the Chancellor, duly assisted by Shri Neeraj Tripathi, Shri S.M.A. Kazmi, learned Additional Advocate General, State of U.P. and Sri Anurag Khanna, learned counsel appearing for the University have submitted that the petitioner indulged in bench hunting as he had earlier filed a writ petition before the Lucknow Bench to challenge the same order, but he subsequently filed an application to withdraw the petition as he wanted to bring on record certain facts which were not placed on record. The application was allowed with liberty to file a fresh petition. They submitted that he then filed the present petition but no new additional facts have been brought on record. It has further been submitted that there is no question of presumption of malice on the part of the Inquiry Officer, and even if for the sake of arguments it is assumed that the authority acted with a mala fide intent, then too it becomes irrelevant as the charges stand established. This Court has a very limited power of interference while undertaking judicial review in such matters and such a course is not warranted in the facts of this case. Thus, the petition is liable to be dismissed.

5. We have considered the rival submissions made by learned counsel for the parties and have perused the record.

Withdrawal of the writ petition from Lucknow Bench :

6. The petitioner had earlier filed Writ Petition No. 32810 of 2005 before the Lucknow Bench of this Court against the order dated 5.8.2005. The matter was taken up on various d