S. NAINAR SUNDARAM, CJ. ( 1 ) IS Letter Patent Appeal is directed against the pronouncement of the learned Single Judge in Special Civil Application No. 1679 of 1981. The respondents in the Special Civil Application are the appellants in this Letters patent Appeal. The petitioner in the Special Civil Application is the respondent in this letters Patent Appeal. For the sake of convenience, we are referring to the panics as per their nomenclature in the Special Civil Application. ( 2 ) THE petitioner who was in the cadre of a Nayak in the services of the respondents was, in disciplinary action visited with an order of dismissal from service on 29. 11. 1975. The petitioner preferred an appeal to the Tribunal under the Gujarat Civil Services tribunal Act, 1972, hereinafter referred to as "the Act". The Tribunal by its order dated 16. 7. 1980 found that the appeal was out of time and no ground acceptable to the Tribunal for the condonation of delay was made out and accordingly the Tribunal dismissed the appeal as time barred. The Tribunal did not go into the merits of the case. The petitioner initially put the order of the Tribunal in issue by preferring the Special Civil Application. While the Special Civil Application was pending the petitioner chose to amend the special Civil Application asking for the relief of quashing the very order of his dismissal from service passed by the respondents. The learned Single Judge who dealt with the special Civil Application, first took up for assessment the grievance of the petitioner regarding the decline on the part of the Tribunal to condone the delay in preferring the appeal and entertain the appeal for being investigated on merits. The learned Single Judge held that, there was sufficient cause for condonation of delay and the Tribunal ought to have condoned the delay and decided the appeal of the petitioner on merits. Even at this stage, we must make it clear that so far as the condonation of the delay as per the indulgence shown by the learned Single Judge is concerned. We have not been troubled by Ms. Rekha Doshit, learned counsel for the respondents/appellants herein, to go into the propriety of the reasoning of the learned Single Judge and his ultimate conclusion. We have not been troubled by Ms. Rekha Doshit, learned counsel for the respondents/appellants herein, to go into the propriety of the reasoning of the learned Single Judge and his ultimate conclusion. Hence we have not disturbed the reasoning and the ultimate finding of the learned Single Judge on the question of condonation of delay for the purpose of the matter being heard and disposed of on merits. We accept and endorse them, on our own. ( 3 ) HOWEVER, the learned Single Judge opined that on account of lime lapse, it would not be expedient to demit the appeal to the Tribunal for it to deal with the appeal on merits and the learned Single Judge by himself chose to deal with the merits of the case of the petitioner in the appeal with regard to the propriety of the disciplinary proceedings and the consequent order of dismissal, faced by the petitioner at the hands of the respondents. The learned Single Judge look note of certain features, broadly speaking such as the denial of an opportunity to the petilioncr to avail of the services of a co-employee or a legal practitioner for the conduct of his defence in the domestic inquiry; and the non-furnishing of names of certain witnesses to the petitioner before they were examined; and all the witnesses getting examined together; and ultimately the learned single Judge opined that the enquiry stood vitiated on the ground of violation of principles of natural justice. Accordingly, the learned Single Judge quashed the order of dismissal passed against the petitioner and accorded the relief of reinstatement with 50% of back wages. This Letters Patent Appeal as already noted is directed against the order of the learned Single Judge. ( 4 ) MS. Rekha Doshit, learned counsel for the respondents/appellants herein would submit that the learned Single Judge ought not to have gone into the merits of the order of dismissal, exercising powers under Article 226 of the Constitution of India and on the other hand, having condoned the delay in preferring the appeal, the learned Single Judge ought to have for relegated the appeal for a fullfledged adjudication on merits at the hands of the Tribunal, which is specifically constituted for that purpose under the Act. Learned counsel for the respondents would grieve that the learned Single Judge took it for granted very many factual facets, without there being adequate pleadings and materials supporting them and the reasoning and the findings of the learned Single Judge are only in the presumptive field. We find that this grievance of learned counsel for the respondents is tenable and cannot be eschewed as baseless. The Tribunal is one constituted under the Act to deal with the appeal as against the order of dismissal, over which the petitioner had and has a grouse. The powers of the Tribunal are to a very extent equated to the powers of a civil Court and they have got wide, amplitude under Section 13 of the Act. The Tribunal has got power to summon and enforce the attendance of any person and examine him on oath; require the discovery and Production of documents; issue commission for the examination of witnesses, etc. These powers certainly enable the Tribunal to go into very many factual aspects which this Court in exercise of powers under Article 226 of the constitution of India may not find it expedient to enter. It is true that the Disciplinary authority has appointed a Presenting Officer. The learned Single Judge opines that he was an experienced and a qualified Presenting Officer. From the pleadings before this court, which alone are available for assessing the question, no such feature emerges. The learned Single Judge on this ground also opines that there was a denial of reasonable apportunity of being heard to the petitioner. Further, the learned Single Judge proceeds that the Disciplinary Authority having appointed a Presenting. Officer, had not enquired from the petitioner as to whether he would like to engage any one from the department of defend him. The petitioner in his pleading has not put forth any such case for the respondent to meet it. It would not be in order for this Court to exercise powers under article 226 of the Constitution of India to act, in a for presumptive field und hold that the petitioner was not at all aware of his right or was not informed of his right to have the assistance of co-servant and as a result, the petitioner must be deemed to have faced a comparative disadvantage compared to the Disciplinary Authority. "all suid against them, it could still be demonstrated by the respondents that the petitioner had not suffered any prejudice on account of these features assuming that they were present. As rightly complained of by the learned counsel for the respondents, this Court ought not to have adjudicated the appeal of the petitioner on merits which exercise could be appropriately done by the Tribunal constituted under the Act for that purpose. The Tribunal is one endowed with that power of adjudication of such appeals. Its powers, as we noticed above, are wider and are those of an ordinary civil court as set forth in Section 13 of the act. Very many factual aspects are not easily discernible and properly assessable without further factual materials being exposed. This process can be adequately and comprehensively gone through before the Tribunal before a final adjudication on merits is rendered. ( 5 ) IT could be said that the jurisdicaiion of this Court under Article 226 of the constitution of India is extensive. But it is not so wider or larger as to enable this Court to convert itself into a Court of appeal and examine for itself the correctness of decisions impugned before the appellate forum, statutorily constituted and render a decision as if this Court is that appellate forum. When a matter is entrusted to the jurisdiction of a statutory appellate forum, this Court, when it finds that there was an omission on the part of the statutory appellate forum to discharge its powers, in that there was a failure to exercise the jurisdiction vested in it, may direct the statutory appellate forum to exercise its jurisdiction. But in that contingency this Court shall not by itself exercise the jurisdiction of the statutory appellate forum and pass orders on merits in the matter. Here is a case where the Tribunal threw out the petitioner even at the threshold by saying that his appeal is time barred, and the Tribunal has not gone into the merits of the appeal. This court will be in order to correct the error in this thinking of the Tribunal as done by the learned Single Judge. But to progress further and take over the role of the statutory appellate forum and deal with the appeal on merits, cannot be-commended. This court will be in order to correct the error in this thinking of the Tribunal as done by the learned Single Judge. But to progress further and take over the role of the statutory appellate forum and deal with the appeal on merits, cannot be-commended. On the simple ground that there has been a considerable time lapse, we do not think that this Court should usurp the jurisdiction of the statutory appellate forum and give the adjudication over the vexed questions, which could happen only on appreciation of all the factual materials. If there had been an adjudication of the appeal of the petitioner by the Tribunal on merits, there may be a chance for the petitioner to persuade this Court to intervene, pointing out any flaw or infirmity, that could be elgilimately corrected by this Court by exercising powers under Article 226 of the Constitution of India and pass appropriate orders, that should have been passed by the Tribunal. Such is not the case here. ( 6 ) THUS, we are convinced that the learned Single Judge in the present case ought not to have adjudicated the appeal of the petitioner on merits and rendered a decision as he did and the matter ought to go back to the Tribunal for it to deal with the appeal of the petitioner on merits, affording adequate opportunity to the parties to submit additional pleadings as they may deem fit, and place materials in substantiation of their respective pleas. We are not losing sight of the time lapse and we are drawing up a time schedule for the disposal of the appeal of the petitioner on merits by the Tribunal. ( 7 ) ACCORDINGLY, we allow this Letters Patent Appeal; set aside the order of the learned Single Judge in Special Civil Application No. 1679 of 1981 dated 26. 9. 1991, subject matter of this Letters Patent Appeal and allow Special Civil Application No. 1679 of 1981 only to the extent of setting aside the order of the Tribunal when it declined to condone the delay in preferring the appeal of the petitioner and the Appeal No. 499 of 1979 will stand remitted to the Tribunal under the Act for a Disposal on merits and in accordance with law and our observations as above. We make no order as to costs. We make no order as to costs. ( 8 ) AS we observed earlier, the matter being considerably old, the Tribunal is directed to dispose of Appeal No. 49 9 of 1979 within a period of six months from the date of the receipt of a copy of this order of this Court. .