JUDGMENT A. K. Ganguly, J. - This writ petition has been filed by the petitioner against an order dated 30.4.1967 by which he was dismissed from service. The dismissal order was passed, inter alia, on the allegation that the petitioner was found absent from B.M.P. Campus. from 5.3.1967 and appeared there again on 9.3.1967 and during that period he was found under the lock up of Katihar Police Station Hajat involved in a theft case. 2. Be that as it may, this Court refuses to exercise its jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India because the cause of action arose for the petitioner in 1967 and he has come to this Court in October, 1996. Learned counsel for the petitioner urged that the impugned order is a void order having been passed by an authority who is not an appropriate authority for passing the impugned order and the said order has been passed without giving him show cause notice which is required under Article 311 of the Constitution of India. Be that as it may, this question cannot be gone into having regard to the inordinate delay in filing this writ petition Learned counsel for the petitioner submits, relying on some authority, that since it is a void order, the delay should not be taken into account and the order should be deemed to be non-existent in the eye of law and the Court may proceed on the basis as if no such order exists. 3. Much of the, distinction between void and voidable order has been eroded. The Courts have held that a void order may be directly or even collaterally challenged. But unless it is challenged and the Court gives its finding the order cannot be ignored or avoided by the party affected by the order. The law on this aspect has been succinctly put by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of State of Kerala vs. M.K. Kunhikannan Nambiar Manjeri Manikoth Naduvil (Dead) and others reported in (1996) 1 S.C.C. page 435. At page 439 and paragraph 8 of the report the following observation has been made : "8. In Halsbury's Laws of England, 4th Edn., (Reissue) Vol. At page 439 and paragraph 8 of the report the following observation has been made : "8. In Halsbury's Laws of England, 4th Edn., (Reissue) Vol. 1 (1) in para 26; p.31, it is stated thus: "If an act or decision, or an order or other instrument is invalid, it should, in principle, be null and void for all purposes; and it has been said that there are no degrees of nullity. Even though such an act is wrong and lacking in jurisdiction, however, it subsists and remains fully effective unless and until it is set aside by a court of competent jurisdiction. Until its validity is challenged, its legality is preserved." In the Judicial Review of Administrative Action, De Smith, Woolf and Jowell, 1995 Edn., at pp. 259-60 the law is stated thus : "The erosion of the distinction between jurisdictional errors and non-jurisdictional errors has, as we have seen, correspondingly eroded the distinction between void and voidable decisions. The courts have become increasingly impatient with the distinction, to the extent that the situation today can be summarised as follows : (1) All official decisions are presumed to be valid until set aside or otherwise held to be invalid by a court of competent jurisdiction." Similarly, Wade and Forsyth in Administrative Law, Seventh Edn., 1994 have stated the law thus at pp. 341 r 342: “..... every unlawful administrative act, however invalid, is merely voidable. But this is no more than the truism that in most situations the only way to resist unlawful action is by recourse to the law. In a well-known passage Lord Radcliffe said : 'An order, even if not made in good faith, is still an act capable of legal consequences. It bears no brand of invalidity upon its forehead. Unless the necessary proceedings are taken at law to establish the cause of invalidity and to get it quashed or otherwise upset, it will remain as effective for its ostensible purpose as the most impeccable of orders.' This must be equally true even where the brand of invalidity is plainly visible; for there also the order can effectively be resisted in law only by obtaining the decision of the court. The necessity of recourse to the court has been pointed out repeatedly in the House of Lords and Privy Council without distinction between patent and latent defects." 4. The necessity of recourse to the court has been pointed out repeatedly in the House of Lords and Privy Council without distinction between patent and latent defects." 4. Similar view was earlier expressed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Shiv Chander Kapoor vs. Amar Bose reported in A.I.R. 1990 S.C. page 325 at page 333 in paragraph 23. The learned Judges of the Supreme Court expressly approved a passage from Wade's Administrative Law 6th Edition which has laid down that unless necessary proceedings are taken to gat the order quashed the same will remain valid. 5. In that view of the matter, this Court finds, with utmost respect, that the decision of Gujrat High Court in the case of State of Gujrat vs. Z.S. Kazi reported in 1977 All India Service Law Journal page 152 does not lay down the law correctly and this Court does not follow the same. The said judgment is not binding on me either and the said decision is contrary to the aforesaid principle. 6. The other judgment which has been cited by the learned counsel for the petitioner in the case of Union of India and another Vs. Sri Babu Ram Lalla reported in A.I.R. 1988 S.C. page 344 is not on this point. In that judgment the learned Judges agreed with the reasoning and the conclusion of the High Court that if the order is declared to be a nullity by a court then the employee concerned is entitled to be paid the salary on the footing that he had always continued in service and the void order was never in existence in the eye of law. Therefore, it is clear from the aforesaid observation of the Supreme Court that in that case the High Court has come to a finding that the order is nullity and a void order. Until such finding is reached, the order exists for all practical purposes. 7. That being that legal position, this Court cannot proceed on the basis that the impugned order even without any challenge to the same, becomes a void order from the very inception. 8. Since the challenge against the order has been made after 29 years, without a satisfactory explanation for delay this Court is not inclined to interfere with the said order. This writ petition is thus dismissed. No order as to cost.