1. The petitioner way back on 10th September, 1963 was vide Government Order No.80/COOP of 1963, appointed as Assistant Registrar in Cooperative Department of the State Government and later vide Order No. Adm/1939-47 dated 19th June, 1972 transferred and posted as such at Bani, District Kathua. Due to personal problems, the peti tioner could not join at new place of posting and applied for casual leave w.e.f 20th June, 1972 to 24th June, 1972. This was followed by successive leave applications till March, 1973. The pe titioner because of his failure to report to his duty was placed under suspen sion and charge sheeted. The charge sheet was published in the Govern ment Gazette in March, 1973 to which reply was submitted by the petitioner in May, 1973. The Registrar, Coopera tive Societies -- respondent no.2 herein, not satisfied with the reply sub mitted by the petitioner, directed an enquiry to be held by the Joint Regis trar Headquarters. The results of en quiry prompted the Registrar, Coopera tives to pass order No. Adm/491-92 dated 19th June, 1974, terminating the service of the petitioner. 2. The aforementioned order terminating the service of the petitioner is assailed in the present writ petition on the grounds that as the casual leave application dated 19th June, 1972 and the applications submitted thereafter for extension having not been expressly rejected by the respondents, the respon dents were not justified in treating the petitioner as absent from duty. It is next, pleaded that the charge sheet hav ing been framed by an incompetent of ficer was not sustainable inasmuch as the petitioner was appointed by Govern ment and the Government alone had powers to frame the charge sheet against the petitioner. The charge sheet, again, according to the peti tioner, was vague and not accompanied by the details of his alleged miscon duct, list of documents to be relied upon, preventing the petitioner from submit ting an effective reply to the charge sheet. The petitioner further claims to have been not in a position to defend the charge sheet, because of failure on part of the respondents to pay substan tive allowance to the petitioner.
The petitioner further claims to have been not in a position to defend the charge sheet, because of failure on part of the respondents to pay substan tive allowance to the petitioner. The enquiry in consequence of charge sheet is said to have been held in vio lation of principle of natural justice without giving due weightage to reply to the charge sheet submitted by peti tioner and further denying the peti tioner an adequate opportunity to project and prove his case set up in re ply to the charge sheet. The petitioner complains that the report of the enquiry was not served upon him and he was not made aware of the conclusions ar rived at by the Enquiry Officer and ma terial on such conclusions were not based. The respondents, once the charges were claimed to have been proved, are said to have avoided to is sue a show cause notice as regards the proposed punishment to the petitioner, so as to enable the petitioner to con vince the respondents that proposed punishment was harsh, excessive and unwarranted. The petitioner questions the impugned order on the ground that it was issued by incompetent Author ity in terms of Jammu and Kashmir Civil Services (Classification Control & Appeal) Rules, 1956. It is insisted that as the petitioner was appointed by the Government and not by the Registrar, Cooperatives, only the Government was competent to terminate service of the petitioner. The petitioner conscious that he was approaching the Court with the writ petition, questioning an order after lapse of 34 years, seeks to explain the delay on the ground that the order was never served on the petitioner; that the respondents did not reject any of the successive representations made by the petitioner from the date of ter mination of his services till filing of the writ petition, that the petitioner be cause of his transfer to Bani and ter mination, thereafter, was caught in fi nancial crises and was not in a posi tion to question his termination.
It is insisted that exercise of extraordinary writ jurisdiction at belated stage is not forbidden by any rule of procedure but purely a rule of practice and that Court is competent to entertain a writ peti tion and grant a writ even where the petitioner approaches the Court after considerable delay but is in a position to explain such delay in filing the writ petition. 3. The writ petition is opposed on the ground that it is hopelessly time barred and liable to be dismissed on account of un-explained delay and laches on part of the petitioner. The respondents insist that none of the fun damental Constitutional or legal rights of the petitioner, was violated as would entitle the petitioner to invoke writ jurisdiction of the Court. The respon dents disputing the factual averments made in petition insist that the peti tioner was informed and made aware of termination of his services vide Or der Nos. 142/902 dated 31.5.1975 and Adm. 131 dated 3.7.1992. 4. Heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the record. 5. The law lies in favour of those, who are alert and vigilant. The Court may not inquire into belated and stale claims and is to be slow in exercising writ jurisdiction, which is essentially equitable and discretionary in nature, where party invoking such jurisdiction is guilty of inordinate delay. The refusal by the Court to entertain and deal with stale claims though not a rule of law is nonetheless a rule of practice that has over years earned respectability. The delay or laches has come to be accepted as a relevant factor to determine the question as to whether the claim put forth by the petitioner deserves consid eration. The Court in exercise of its discretion, it has been held times with out number, must not ordinarily assist tardy, indolent, acquiescent and lethar gic. If there is inordinate delay on the part of aggrieved and such delay is not satisfactorily explained, the Court may very well decline the relief. The omis sion and negligence on the part of an aggrieved to assert his right for a con siderably long time may cause preju dice to his adversary in the event the matter is inquired into despite his hav ing slept over the matter for too long.
The omis sion and negligence on the part of an aggrieved to assert his right for a con siderably long time may cause preju dice to his adversary in the event the matter is inquired into despite his hav ing slept over the matter for too long. Though there is no universal or invio lable rule that whenever there is de lay, the claim put forth must meet fail ure yet inordinate and unexplained delay and that too stretching over a long, long period is to stand in the way of aggrieved to get the relief that he avoided or forgot to seek though there was cause. However, the discretion is to be exercised judiciously and reason ably. There are two circumstances that have been held to be important in such cases and must guide exercise of dis cretion - firstly, the length of the delay and secondly the nature of acts done during interval, which might affect ei ther party, and influence balance of justice and injustice in taking the one course or the other, so far these relate to the remedy. 6. In the present case the petitioner, terminated from service vide Order No. Adm/491-92 dated 19th June 1974, has woken up from deep slum ber and felt persuaded to question the termination order in the year 2008 i.e., after 34 long years. The case set up by petitioner to explain long and inordi nate delay of 34 years is that the ter mination order No. Adm/491-92 dated 19th June 1974 was not served on the petitioner. The explanation tendered by the petitioner is far from convincing. The petitioner was vide Order No. Adm/193-94 dated 19th June 1972 trans ferred and posted as Assistant Registrar, Cooperatives at Bani District Kathua. The petitioner did not obey the transfer order and failed to report at his new place of posting. The petitioner instead applied for casual leave followed by successive leave applications. How ever, leave was not sanctioned in his favour. The respondents instead placed the petitioner under suspension, framed charge-sheet against him, which was duly published in Govern ment Gazette of March 1973. The peti tioner, aware of rejection of his succes sive leave applications, his suspension and charge-sheet, responded to charge-sheet and filed his reply to it in May 1973.
How ever, leave was not sanctioned in his favour. The respondents instead placed the petitioner under suspension, framed charge-sheet against him, which was duly published in Govern ment Gazette of March 1973. The peti tioner, aware of rejection of his succes sive leave applications, his suspension and charge-sheet, responded to charge-sheet and filed his reply to it in May 1973. The petitioner thus was well aware of rejection of his successive leave applications, disciplinary pro ceedings having been initiated against him, and can be reasonably expected to have been conscious of outcome of the proceedings. The respondents ad mittedly did not pay any salary to peti tioner after his failure to report to Bani in June 1972, and was not paid any subsistence allowance after his sus pension ordered in March 1973. The petitioner, in the circumstances, can not be heard saying that he was not aware of termination order No. Adm/491-92 dated 19th June 1974. 7. The petitioner was working on a senior position in Cooperative De partment and is presumed to be well aware of his rights including right to claim salary prior to his suspension and subsistence allowance after his suspension was ordered. Similarly, the petitioner is expected to have been aware of the course that disciplinary proceedings are follow and how the results of such proceedings were to shape up. The petitioner cannot explain long delay of three and a half decades merely on the ground that he made successive applications for grant/ex tension in his leave from June 1972 to March 1973 (Annexures B to Q to the petition) or grant of suspension allow ance in the year 1973 (Annexure T&V). The fact that the petitioner was fully aware of the termination order in the year 1974 itself is borne out by Annexure-X, annexed by the petitioner with the writ petition, whereby petitioner on 19th September 1974 submitted an ap plication to the Registrar Cooperative Societies, asking for a copy of termi nation order. The review petitions and representations filed by the petitioner thereafter, after intervals of one to two years do not indicate that the petitioner at any point of time intended to seri ously question the termination order.
The review petitions and representations filed by the petitioner thereafter, after intervals of one to two years do not indicate that the petitioner at any point of time intended to seri ously question the termination order. The purpose appears to have been only to keep the pot - not boiling but on low intensity fire and allow the issue to be alive till the petitioner crossed the age of superannuation and would turn around to seek the benefits that were never claimed, without rendering any actual service. The petitioner obviously after he did not chose to obey the trans fer order and join as Assistant Regis trar, Bani in June 1972 must have pur sued a profession of his choice, feeling no urge to resume the duty or question the termination order. 8. This Court in shakeel Ahmad Shal v. State of J&K and ors. 2008(1) SLJ 261 after a threadbare discussion of the law on the subject of laches held that an unexplained delay of six years in throwing challenge to the termina tion order would stand in the way of the petitioner to invoke extra ordinary writ jurisdiction of the Court. It was held that the very fact that the petitioner was not paid salary after his dismissal would dissuade the Court from record ing agreement with the plea that the dismissal order was not communicated to the petitioner. The Court while hold ing the petition belated relied upon law laid down in State of Maharashtra versus Digambar, AIR 1995 SC 1991 , State of M.P versus Nandlal, AIR 1987 SC 251 , Ashok Kumar versus Collec tor Raiupur, AIR 1980 SC 112 and Life Insurance Corporation of India Vs. Jyotish Chandra Biswas 2000 (6) SCC 562 . 9. For the reasons discussed above, the petitioner because of inor dinate, unexplained delay and laches on his part is not entitled to invoke writ jurisdiction of the Court. 10. This apart, the writ petition, if allowed shall result in immense admin istrative difficulties inasmuch as the respondents would be required to en quire into a misconduct, that the peti tioner allegedly indulged in 39 years back. 11. The petition, is accordingly, dis missed.