Committee of Management, Hindu College, through its Manager, Shanker Saran v. State of Uttar Pradesh
2004-07-28
MARKANDEY KATJU, UMESHWAR PANDEY
body2004
DigiLaw.ai
M. KATJU, UMESHWAR PANDEY, JJ. ( 1 ) THIS Special Appeal has been filed against the impugned judgment of the learned Single Judge dated 5-7-2004. ( 2 ) WE have carefully perused the impugned judgment and have heard the learned Counsel for the parties. ( 3 ) THE petitioner is a Committee of Management of a Degree College in Moradabad There were very serious allegations against the petitioner, which have been set out in detail in the impugned judgment On internal page 3 of the impugned judgment, there are five serious charges of financial irregularities, which have been quoted therein e. g. that the College Management, has illegally transferred Rs. 50,00,000/- to the Hindu Educational Society from the College fund, that the College received. Rs. 260/- per private candidate instead of prescribed amount of Rs. 60/only for recommending their exam forms to the University and from the account, illegally transferred Rs. 10,75,000/- to the Hindu Education Society etc. Hence the State Government issued notice Under Section 57 of the U. P. State Universities Act and has also passed an order dated 18-6-2003 suspending the Management and appointing an authorised Controller Under section 58 (2) of the Act. ( 4 ) SRI Ashok Khare, learned Counsel for the appellants has submitted that Section 58 (2) requires reasons to be recorded which has not been done. Section 58 (2) of the Act states : "where the State Government while issuing a notice Under Section 57 is of opinion, for reasons to be recorded, that immediate action is necessary in the interest of the College, it may suspend the Management, which shall thereupon cease to function, and make such arrangement as it thinks proper for managing the affairs of the College and its property till further proceedings are completed : provided that no such order shall remain in force for more than six months from the date of actual taking over the Management in pursuance of such order : provided further that in computation of the said period of six months, the time during which the operation of the order was suspended by any order of the High Court passed in exercise of jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution or any period during which the Management failed to show cause in pursuance of the notice Under Section 57, shall be excluded.
" ( 5 ) IN our opinion even assuming that reasons have not been recorded as required by Section 58 (2), this is not a fit case for interference under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, in view of the very serious charges against the appellant. ( 6 ) IT is well settled that writ jurisdiction is discretionary jurisdiction. Hence even if there is violation of any law, we are not bound to interfere vide Chandra Singh v. State of Rajasthan and anr. , JT 2003 (6) SC 20 (vide para 42), Ramnik N. Bhutta and Anr. v. State of Maharashtra and ors. , 1997 (1) SCC 134 etc. ( 7 ) HENCE even if there is a technical violation of Section 58 (2) of the Act, we are not bound to exercise our discretionary jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India particularly in such a case where there are very serious allegations of financial irregularities of huge amounts against the appellant. We are not saying anything at present as to whether these charges are correct or not, as that will be determined in the enquiry, but this Court should certainly not interfere at this stage. ( 8 ) THE appeal is, therefore, dismissed. ( 9 ) HOWEVER, we direct that the inquiry against the appellant shall be completed preferably within a period of three months from the date of production a certified copy of this order before the authority concerned in accordance with law and final orders shall be passed thereafter. . .