IMPORTANT POINT
The court established that the Appellate Authority must consider delay condonation applications on their merits and that the State Government's powers under Rule 25 are not barred if no competent appeal has been filed.

JUDGMENT :

HON'BLE J.J. MUNIR

1. The petitioner is a dismissed Constable of the Uttar Pradesh Police. If there is anything to his cause, it is that he has never been heard on the merits of his challenge by any of the departmental fora of appeal and revision with all of them throwing out his case either on limitation or some other ground of maintainability.

2. The facts giving rise to this petition are these:

The petitioner was a Constable in the Civil Police. He was appointed on 01.02.1982 and worked up to the year 2010, when he was dismissed from service. The petitioner was placed under suspension pending inquiry vide order dated 17.02.2005 on the charge of unauthorized absence from duty. A charge-sheet was served upon the petitioner on 10.05.2008 under Rule 14(1) of The Uttar Pradesh Police Officers of the Subordinate Ranks (Punishment and Appeal) Rules, 1991 (for short, 'the Rules'). The Inquiry Officer, appointed to inquire into the charges, submitted his report on 21.11.2008. The petitioner, on the basis of findings of the Inquiry Officer, was dismissed by the Superintendent of Police, Lakhimpur Kheri vide order dated 28.05.2010.

3. The petitioner carried a departmental appeal impugning the order of his dismissal from service passed by the Superintendent of Police last mentioned under Rule 20 of the Rules. The Deputy Inspector General of Police, Lucknow Range, Lucknow, before whom the appeal came up, dismissed the same vide order dated 30.11.2012 on ground that it was barred by an uncondonable period of limitation. The petitioner challenged the appellate order by instituting a claim petition before the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Tribunal, bearing No.426 of 2012. The Tribunal by their judgment and order dated 22.12.2015 held that the appeal being preferred before the Appellate Authority beyond the prescribed period of limitation of 90 days, which the Appellate Authority refused to condone, the Tribunal could do nothing in the matter. The power of condonation was vested with the Appellate Authority, which had declined the condonation of delay. The Tribunal held further that since the remedy of appeal had not been exhausted by the petitioner by preferring a competent appeal within the prescribed period of limitation, the claim petition was one instituted without exhausting the statutory alternative remedy. It was on this rather queer logic that the Tribunal dismissed the claim petition.

4. The petitioner challenged the Tribunal's judgment before this Court by means of Writ Petition No.4229 (S/B) of 2016. A Division Bench off this Court vide judgment and order dated 21.09.2016 quashed the order of the Appellate Authority, rejecting the petitioner's statutory appeal as barred by time, as well as the Tribunal's judgment dated 22.12.2015 and restored the appeal to the Appellate Authority's file for re-consideration, bearing in mind the observations carried in the order of the Division Bench. When the petitioner's appeal came up before the Appellate Authority, to wit, the Deputy Inspector General of Police, Lucknow Range, Lucknow afresh on 14.02.2017, it was rejected again substantially on the ground of an uncondonable limitation. The petitioner challenged the order passed by the Appellate Authority by means of a revision under Rule 23 of the Rules to the Inspector General of Police, Lucknow Zone, Lucknow. The Inspector General dismissed the revision vide order dated 12.05.2017 with the remark that the appeal was rightly dismissed as barred by limitation.

5. The petitioner preferred a representation dated 10.08.2017 under Rule 25 of the Rules to the State Government. The State Government passed an order dated 14.08.2017 directing the Superintendent of Police, Kheri to look into the petitioner's case on humanitarian ground and take appropriate action with regard to his reinstatement in service. It appears that at this stage the petitioner filed a writ petition before this Court being Writ Petition No.25392 (S/S) of 2018, seeking a dire