( 1 ) BY consent of the parties, the appeal is treated as on day's list. A charge sheet vide a Memorandum dated 27th March 1997 was issued against the appellant under the signature of the Municipal Commissioner, Calcutta Municipal Corporation, Calcutta. Three articles of charges form the substratum of the charge-sheet. The proceedings are stated to have been held thereafter culminating in the passing of the final order on 17th August 1999. Even though the final order was conveyed to the appellant under the signature and through a forwarding letter of the Joint Municipal Commissioner, the order itself was passed by the Municipal Commissioner. The appellant was awarded certain punishments including his reversion to the post of Junior Assistant. The appellant challenged the aforesaid punishment order by filing a writ Application in this Court. Against the refusal to pass any interim order by the learned single Judge, the appellant has preferred the present appeal under clause 15 of the Letters Patent. ( 2 ) MR. Mitra, learned senior advovate appearing for the appellant, has raised before us a very simple question of law. The appellant admittedly is holding a B category post under section 18 of the Calcutta Municipal Act, 1980, the appointment to a category B post is required to be made by the Joint Municipal Commissioner under section 21 of the Act. It therefore clearly means that Joint Municipal Commissioner of Calcutta Municipal Corporation is the appointing authority in respect of category "b" posts in the Corporation. This is one aspect of the matter. ( 3 ) ALL matters regarding the maintenance of discipline and imposition of penalties are covered by section 21 of the Act. Under sub-section (3) of section 21, it is the appointing Authority who has been given the power to impose any of the punishments/penalties mentioned therein upon an employee of the Corporation. This is one aspect of the matter. ( 3 ) ALL matters regarding the maintenance of discipline and imposition of penalties are covered by section 21 of the Act. Under sub-section (3) of section 21, it is the appointing Authority who has been given the power to impose any of the punishments/penalties mentioned therein upon an employee of the Corporation. Sub-section (3) of section 21 of the Act reads as under :"section 21 (3) : Any officer or employee of the Corporation as may be determined by regulation, may be censured, fined, penalised by withholding of increment or promotion temporaily or permanently, penalised by recovery from his pay of the whole or part of any pecuniary loss caused by him to the Corporation, reduced to a lower time-scale of pay for a specified period, reduced to a lower time-scale of pay, grade, post or service, or penalised by compulsory retirement or removal or dismissal from service for any breach of departmental rules or of discipline or for negligence of duties or for other misconduct, by the authority by whom such officer or employee has been appointed. " ( 4 ) THE Act has made a specific provision for filing of statutory appeals against the order of imposition of penalty by the appointing Authority in terms of sub-section (3) of section 21 of the Act. Sub-section (4) of section 21 itself makes such a provision when, apart from creating such a right of filing a statutory appeal against the imposition of penalty, it also prescribes the competant Authorities before whom such appeals lie, the prescription of such competant appellate authority having direct nexus and with due regard to the category and classification of the employee aggrieved who intends to prefer the appeal against the penalty order. Sub-section (4) reads as under:"sub-SECTION (4) - An appeal against an order under sub-section (3) shall lie -a)to the Corporation where the appointing authority is the Mayor-in-council; b)to the Mayor in the case of an officer or employee holding a category "a" post; c)to the Municipal Commissioner in the case of an officer or employee holding a category "b" post; and d)to the Joint Municipal Commissioner in the case of an officer or employee holding a category "c" post or a category "d" post. " ( 5 ) IN the case of Surajit Ghosh v. Chairman and M. D. United Commercial Bank reported in AIR 1995 SC 1053 their Lordships of the Supreme Court while dealing with an identical question relating to the passing of the order of punishment by an authority higher than the prescribed authority under the relevant Rules/regulations clearly held that if the Rules/regulations provide for an Appeal from the original order of punishment, and if the original order itself is passed by the Appellate Authority, the order shall be bad in law since, apart from being discriminatory in nature and do here the Rules/regulations, it tends to deprive the aggrieved employee of the right of appeal. We quote with advantage the following observations in the aforesaid judgment :"the respondent-Bank in its submission contended that although it is true that the Deputy General Manager had acted as the disciplinary authority when he was in fact named under the Regulations as an appellate authority, no prejudice is caused to the appellant because the Deputy General Manager is higher in rank than the disciplinary authority, viz. the Divisional Manager/agm (Personnel ). According to the Bank, it should be held that when the order of punishment is passed by a higher authority, no appeal is available under the Regulation as it is not necessary to provide for the same. It was also contained that there is no right to appeal unless it is provided under the Rules or Regulations. Although the argument looks attractive at first sight, its weakness lie in the fact that it tries to place the Rules/regulations which provide no appeal on par with the Rules/regulations where appeal is provided. It is true that when an authority higher than the disciplinary authority itself imposes the punishment, the order of punishment suffers from no illegality when no appeal is provided to such authority. However, when an appeal is provided to the higher authority concerned against the order of disciplinary authority or of a lower authority and the higher authority passes an order of punishment, the employee concerned is deprived of the remedy of appeal which is a substantive right given to him by the Rules/regulations. An employee cannot be deprived of his substantive right. An employee cannot be deprived of his substantive right. What is further, when there is a provision of appeal against the order of the disciplinary authority and when the appellate or the higher authority against whose order there is no appeal, excercises the powers of the disciplinary authority in a given case, it results in discrimination against the employee concerned. This is particularly so when there are no guidelines in the Rules/regulations as to when the higher authority or the appellate authority should excercise the powers of the disciplinary authority. The higher or appellate authority may choose to excercise the power of the disciplinary authority in some cases while not doing so in other cases. In such cases, the right of the employee depends upon the choice of the higher/appellate authority which patently results in discrimination between an employee and employee. Surely, such a situation cannot savour of legality. Hence we are of the view that the contention advanced on behalf of the respondent-Bank that when an appellate authority chooses to excercise the power of disciplinary authority, it should be held that there is no right of appeal provided under the Regulations cannot be accepted. The result, therefore, is that the present order of dismissal suffers from an inherent defect and has to be set aside. " ( 6 ) IF the Joint Municipal Commissioner is the appointing Authority of the employee holding category "b" posts he alone has the power and jurisdiction to initiate disciplinary proceedings and pass the order of imposition of penalty. Against such an order the statutory appeal lies to the Municipal Commissioner as noticed above. In the present case what we find is that the Municipal Commissioner incorrectly assumed to himself the jurisdiction of not only initiating proceedings and serving the Charge sheet butalse to pass final order imposing the penalty. Not only the Punishment Order has been passed by a person on wrong and incorrect assumption of jurisdiction de hers the legal provisions contained in section 21 (3) of the act read with section 18, but this has also resulted in grave miscarriage of justice inasmuch as the employee concerned has bee deprived of his right of filing an appeal against such an order. We are saying so because the clear language employed in sub-section (4) of section 21 suggests that the only the appellate Authority in respect of the employee holding category "b" posts is the Municipal Commissioner and none else. If section 21 (4) has restricted the right of filing appeal only before the Municipal Commissioner, by any fiction of law or by any stretching process we cannot extend it to a higher authority if the Municipal Commissioner himself has passed the order imposing the penalty. That would amount to importing into the section something which is not contained therein, or doing patent violence to its plain simple meaning. In any event the impugned order of impassing the penalty has to be quashed and set aside on either of the aforesaid two accounts. ( 7 ) FOR the foregoing reason therefore we allow this appeal and application for stay and with the consent of the parties we also dispose of the writ application. The impugned order imposing the penalty, the Charge sheet and all disciplinary proceedings are quashed and set aside. We however make it clear that this shall not prevent the Calcutta Municipal Corporation from initiating fresh proceedings against the appellant, if so advised and if so warranted. As requested by Mr. Behani we direct that the appellant shall be permitted to join his duties in the Corporation within 72 hours from today. All parties concerned shall act on a signed Xerox copy of this dictated order on the usual undertaking. Appeal allowed.