The main legal point established in the judgment is that there is no provision for continuing disciplinary proceedings after retirement, and any order passed without authority of law is liable to be quashed.

1. Supplementary affidavit filed today to explain the delay in filing the writ petition, is taken on record. We found that the latches in filing writ petition have sufficiently been explained.

2. Since purely question of law is involved in the writ petition, we proceeded to hear the matter with the consent of parties.

3. The writ petition has been filed with a prayer for quashing the impugned order dated 24.11.2015 by which the order of recovery by way of punishment has been passed against the petitioner and the disciplinary proceedings have been disposed of accordingly. The petitioner has further prayed for a direction to the opposite parties to pay all retiral dues including leave encashment and security amount to the petitioner alongwith 8% interest.

4. The facts, in brief, for disposal of the present writ petition are that the petitioner was initially appointed on the post of Clerk in the office of Uttar Pradesh State Warehousing Corporation, Aligarh and subsequently he was promoted to several posts and lastly he was promoted on the post of Deputy Manager on 26.12.2013, which is a Class-I post. The petitioner retired from service after attaining the age of superannuation on 31.07.2014. Prior to retirement of the petitioner, an enquiry was instituted against him vide order No. 1237 dated 25.04.2014 issued by the Managing Director in respect to the storage losses occurred in the year 2002, 2003 and 2004, when he was posted at Kalpi Warehouse Center, as loss occurred in wheat, measuring the loss of Rs. 63,277.59/-. The Enquiry Officer issued a charge sheet to the petitioner on 12.06.2014, to which the reply was submitted by the petitioner on 17.06.2014 denying the charges levelled against him and also stating therein that loss, which is said to have occurred, is natural loss and is liable to be written-off. After conclusion of the enquiry, Managing Director issued a letter No. 5947 dated 01.07.2014 annexing therewith the copy of enquiry report dated 23.06.2014 seeking a reply within ten days to the said show cause notice. On 14.07.2014, the petitioner submitted a reply to the Managing Director denying the allegations and submitted documents, specially mentioning that the alleged losses have not occurred due to his fault. It was also mentioned that in the alleged year, there was dryness in the area and due to this reason, wheat absorbed moisture and as such loss was found. The Managing Director of the Corporation passed an order dated 21.07.2014, whereby the liability of Rs.61,276.20/- was determined and fixed against the petitioner without jurisdiction and also in violation of the Principal of Natural Justice. The petitioner challenged the order dated 21.07.2014 by means of filing Writ Petition No. 647 (S/B) of 2015 before this Court which was allowed alongwith other connected Writ Petitions and the impugned order was quashed by means of judgment and order dated 29.07.2015. The operative portion of which, on reproduction, reads as under :

“In view of the aforesaid discussion, we are of the view that once the statutory provision prescribes the particular power by the particular authority that has to be exercised accordingly, more so that cannot be abridged by any such decision as has been taken through resolution dated 17.11.2014 passed by the Board of Directors.

Therefore, in conclusion, we are of the view that Managing Director of the Corporation has exceeded its jurisdiction to impose a penalty of dismissal as well as on issuing direction to recover the amount indicated in the impugned orders. Accordingly, the orders impugned suffer from jurisdiction, therefore those are hereby quashed. Since we have interfered in the orders impugned only on the ground of jurisdiction, it is appropriate to observe for the competent authority which is the Executive Committee of the Corporation to exercise its power to pass a fresh order in the matter.

Subject to aforesaid observations the writ petition stands allowed.”

In compliance of th