The court emphasized the need for bank employees to maintain integrity and trust, and held that serious charges of corruption and bribery justified the suspension of the employee.

Rajan Roy, J.

1. Heard learned counsel for the rival parties and perused the record. The petitioner herein is an employee of the Allahabad Bank. He was posted as Branch Manager, Allahabad Branch, District Shrawasti, earlier. He is alleged to have been involved in demanding and accepting bribe for sanction of K.C.C. loan. In this connection he was arrested and detained by the C.B.I. for a period exceeding 48 hours on the aforesaid criminal allegations. He was placed under suspension vide order dated 24.12.2012. Consequent to his detention exceeding the period of 48 hours in terms of Regulation 12(2)(a) of the Allahabad Bank Officer Employees' (Discipline and Appeal) Regulations, 1976 (hereinafter referred to as 'Regulations of 1976'). He submitted an application for revocation of his suspension under Rule 12(5)(b) of the said Regulations of 1976. The said representation had been rejected by the competent authority vide order dated 23.8.2014, which is impugned before us.

2. Contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner is that the prolonged suspension of the petitioner for the past more than two years is unjustified and unsustainable in law. In similar circumstances, others namely Shakeeb Ahmad Zafri, Chaitanya Kumar, Chandra Pal Singh, Mahendra Singh and S.K. Agarwal against whom also criminal proceedings had been initiated and they were detained in custody, their suspension was revoked, but only in the petitioner's case an exception has been made. He relied upon a judgment of the Supreme Court passed in Civil Appeal No. 1912 of 2015, dated 16.2.2015, Ajay Kumar Choudhary v. Union of India and another, wherein, according to him, prolonged suspension in such circumstances had been disapproved. In view of above, he submitted that the continued suspension of the petitioner needs to be brought to an end.

3. On the other hand, learned counsel for the opposite party/Bank submitted that the request for revocation of suspension has been rejected on justified grounds, as criminal prosecution against the petitioner has been sanctioned by the competent authority under Section 19 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (hereinafter referred to as "Act") on 28.2.2013 and the criminal case is pending before the Special Judge, Anti Corruption, C.B.I. (West), Lucknow. The judgments relied upon by the learned counsel for the petitioner do not help him. He has relied upon judgments of the Supreme Court in Southern Railway Officers v. Union of India, 2009 (9) SCC 24 ; Allahabad Bank v. Deepak Kumar Bhola, 1997 (4) SCC 1 ; Punjab National Bank v. Jagdish Singh, 1998 (9) SCC 265 ; C.M. Chaudhari v. S.B.I., 1998 (78) SLR 646 and A.K.K. Nambiar v. U.I.O., 1969 (3) SCC 864 .

4. We have considered submissions of the rival parties and perused the record.

5. Rule 12(1)(b) of the Regulations of 1976 provides that an officer/employee may be placed under suspension by the competent authority where a case against him in respect of criminal offence is under inspection, inquiry or trial. Rule 12(2) of the Regulations provides that an officer/employee shall be deemed to have been placed under suspension by an order of the competent authority w.e.f. the date of detention, if he is detained in custody, whether on a criminal charge or otherwise for a period exceeding 48 hours. Rule 12(5) provides that an order of suspension made or deemed to have been made under this Regulation shall continue to remain in force until it is modified or revoked by an authority competent authority to do so. Sub-rule (b) of Rule 12(5) provides that an order of suspension made or deemed to have been made under this Regulation may at any time be modified or revoked by the authority which made or deemed to have made the order.

6. Initially the petitioner herein was placed under suspension vide order dated 24.12.2012 under Regulation 12(2), referred to above, on the ground of his detention exceeding 48 hours in connection with a criminal charge. By the time his application for