ORDER : Sandeep Mehta, J. 1. By way of the instant writ petition, the petitioner has approached this Court assailing the legality and validity of the order (Annex.9) dated 31.7.1995, whereby the disciplinary authority of the petitioner, imposed upon him the penalty of dismissal from service. 2. The petitioner was posted as a Manager in the respondent Jaipur Nagaur Aanchalik Gramin Bank. A departmental inquiry came to be instituted against him in relation to allegations of large scale irregularities in sanctioning/disbursing of the loans/advances under various banks schemes. The allegations included the charge that the petitioner exceeded the sanctioning limits vested in him as a Manager and made payment directly to the borrowers as against the Bank's norms as per which, payment was required to be made to the supplier of the items/assets. He disbursed loans in the name of fictitious persons, violated the rules and procedure of the Bank in regard to financing, particularly in case of IRDP beneficiaries, and also sanctioned and disbursed loans to more than one person of one family etc. The petitioner was placed under suspension and was directed to be paid subsistence allowance @ ? of the basic pay and dearness allowances. 3. The petitioner filed a writ petition being Civil Writ Petition No. 1704/1987 assailing the action of the respondents in granting him meager subsistence allowance. The said writ petition was withdrawn by the petitioner's counsel on 7.12.1988. Thereafter, the disciplinary authority proceeded with the inquiry, wherein the petitioner fully participated and exhibited as many as 59 documents and examined two witnesses in defence. It is not disputed, that the petitioner was assisted by a defence nominee during the course of the inquiry. The disciplinary authority, upon conclusion of the inquiry proceedings, imposed upon the petitioner, penalty of dismissal from service by the impugned order (Annex.9) dated 31.7.1995. It is not in dispute that against an order in the nature of the one assailed directly in this writ petition, there is available a statutory remedy of filing an appeal under Rules 31 and 32 of the Staff Service Regulations of Jaipur Nagaur Aanchalik Gramin Bank, which are reproduced herein below for the sake of ready reference:- "31. Right to appeal (1) An officer or employee shall have a right of appeal against any order passed by an authority which injuriously affects his interest. Right to appeal (1) An officer or employee shall have a right of appeal against any order passed by an authority which injuriously affects his interest. (2) The appeal shall be preferred to the appellate authority mentioned in regulation 32 within 30 days of the date of service of the order appealed against. The appellate authority shall consider whether the findings of the disciplinary authority are justified and whether the penalty imposed is adequate and pass suitable orders as early as possible. 32. Appellate Authority An appeal in the case of an officer or employee shall be to the Board." 4. Rather than availing the said statutory remedy, the petitioner slept over the matter for almost two years and then approached this Court by way of the instant writ petition, which was presented in the court on 16.9.1997 i.e. after more than two years of the impugned order being passed. 5. The respondents in their reply, have specifically taken an objection that the petitioner has available to him a statutory remedy of appeal against the order imposing penalty and as such, the writ petition should be declined. The specific objection raised by the respondents in their reply has not been countered by the petitioner till date by way of any rejoinder etc. However, it may be noticed that the petitioner has filed an additional affidavit dated 26.9.1997, wherein it has been pleaded that the petitioner's parents were ailing for a long period of time and the petitioner's father expired subsequently and thus, he was prevented from filing the writ petition in time. 6. At the outset, the learned counsel for the respondents raised a preliminary objection regarding the maintainability of the writ petition. He placed reliance upon the decision rendered by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of United Bank of India v. Satyawati Tondon & Others, reported in (2010) 8 SCC 110 and contended that the writ petition is liable to be dismissed because the petitioner despite availability of a statutory remedy of appeal against the order of dismissal under Rules 31 and 32 of the Staff Regulations, did not avail the same and rather approached this Court in the writ jurisdiction directly against the said order and thus, the writ petition being not maintainable, should be dismissed. 7. 7. Learned counsel for the petitioner contends that the alternative remedy cannot be a bar for entertaining the writ petition and particularly so because the writ petition has been admitted long back and thus, after this delay of nearly 18 years, the petitioner should not be relegated to pursue the alternative remedy, as such a direction would be prejudicial to his interest. She places reliance upon the following decisions in support of the above contention:- (1) L.K. Verma v. HMT Ltd. & Another, reported in (2006) 2 SCC 269 (2) Harbanslal Sahnia & Another v. Indian Oil Corp. Ltd & Others, reported in 2003 AIR SCW 126. (3) Deepak Kumar Khivsara v. Oil India Ltd. & Others, reported in 1996 (1) RLR 95. (4) Whirlpool Corporation v. Registrar of Trade Marks, Mumbai, reported in (1998) 8 SCC 1 . She also assailed the legality and validity of the impugned order on merits by raising numerous grounds. 8. Heard and considered the arguments advanced at the bar. Perused the material available on record. In the case of United Bank of India (supra) relied upon by the learned counsel for the respondents, in support of his preliminary objection regarding the maintainability of the writ petition, the Hon'ble Supreme Court held as below: "42. There is another reason why the impugned order should be set aside. If respondent No. 1 had any tangible grievance against the notice issued under Section 13(4) or action taken under Section 14, then she could have availed remedy by filing an application under Section 17 (1). The expression 'any person' used in Section 17(1) is of wide import. It takes within its fold, not only the borrower but also guarantor or any other person who may be affected by the action taken under Section 13 (4) or Section 14. Both, the Tribunal and the Appellate Tribunal are empowered to pass interim orders under Sections 17 and 18 and are required to decide the matters within a fixed time schedule. It is thus evident that the remedies available to an aggrieved person under the SARFAESI Act are both expeditious and effective. 43. Both, the Tribunal and the Appellate Tribunal are empowered to pass interim orders under Sections 17 and 18 and are required to decide the matters within a fixed time schedule. It is thus evident that the remedies available to an aggrieved person under the SARFAESI Act are both expeditious and effective. 43. Unfortunately, the High Court overlooked the settled law that the High Court will ordinarily not entertain a petition under Article 226 of the Constitution if an effective remedy is available to the aggrieved person and that this rule applies with greater rigour in matters involving recovery of taxes, cess, fees, other types of public money and the dues of banks and other financial institutions. In our view, while dealing with the petitions involving challenge to the action taken for recovery of the public dues, etc., the High Court must keep in mind that the legislation's enacted by Parliament and State Legislatures for recovery of such dues are code unto themselves inasmuch as they not only contain comprehensive procedure for recovery of the dues but also envisage constitution of quasi judicial bodies for redressal of the grievance of any aggrieved person. Therefore, in all such cases, High Court must insist that before availing remedy under Article 226 of the Constitution, a person must exhaust the remedies available under the relevant statute. 44. While expressing the aforesaid view, we are conscious that the powers conferred upon the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution to issue to any person or authority, including in appropriate cases, any Government, directions, orders or writs including the five prerogative writs for the enforcement of any of the rights conferred by Part III or for any other purpose are very wide and there is no express limitation on exercise of that power but, at the same time, we cannot be oblivious of the rules of self-imposed restraint evolved by this Court, which every High Court is bound to keep in view while exercising power under Article 226 of the Constitution. 45. 45. It is true that the rule of exhaustion of alternative remedy is a rule of discretion and not one of compulsion, but it is difficult to fathom any reason why the High Court should entertain a petition filed under Article 2 26 o f the Constitution and pass interim order ignoring the fact that the petitioner can avail effective alternative remedy by filing application, appeal, revision, etc. and the particular legislation contains a detailed mechanism for redressal of his grievance." (Emphasis supplied) 9. Thus, it is evident that in the aforesaid judgment, the Hon'ble Supreme Court in no unequivocal terms held that it is difficult to fathom any reason why the High Court should entertain a petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution ignoring the fact that the litigant can avail effective alternative remedy by filing application, appeal, revision, etc. especially when the particular legislation contains a detailed mechanism for redressal of the grievance. Upon going through the averments made by the petitioner in the writ petition and the grounds raised against the order imposing penalty, it is evident that the petitioner has not raised any ground that the departmental authority did not have jurisdiction to conduct the proceedings. In other words, the impugned order is not challenged on the ground of lack of jurisdiction. All that is alleged in the writ petition is that the inquiry was conducted in violation of the principles of natural justice because the petitioner was not supplied with the documents and was thus denied adequate opportunity of submitting his defence to the charge-sheet. The said ground could certainly have been agitated by the petitioner while filing an appeal under Rules 31 and 32 of the Staff Regulations as well. That apart, on going through the impugned order, no apparent violation of principles of natural justice is reflected therefrom. 10. In the judgment relied upon by the petitioner's counsel in Whirlpool Corporation's case (supra), the Hon'ble Supreme Court held that alternative remedy would not operate as a bar in three contingencies namely where the Writ Petition has been filed for the enforcement of any of the Fundamental rights or where there has been a violation of the principle of natural justice or where the order or proceedings are wholly without jurisdiction or the vires of an Act is challenged. Though the petitioner has come out with a case that there was a violation of the principles of natural justice but this Court after going through the proceedings of the inquiry report is not satisfied with the plea that the principles of natural justice were violated by the disciplinary authority while conducting the departmental proceedings against the petitioner. As noticed above, the petitioner exhibited as many as 59 documents in support of his defence and also examined two witnesses in support of his case. If at all, the petitioner was aggrieved of the action of the disciplinary authority in denying him copies of the documents, which he claimed through letter (Annex.4) dated 24.12.1986, he could have approached the Court then and there only. That apart, as has been noted above, the petitioner admittedly approached this Court by way of a Writ Petition No. 1704/87 during pendency of the disciplinary proceedings. If the petitioner was genuinely interested in the documents, then he could have agitated this issue in the said writ petition, which was withdrawn by the petitioner's counsel on 7.12.1988. Thus the judgment cited by learned counsel in the case of Whirlpool Corporation (supra) is of no help to the petitioner. 11. The other judgment relied upon by the learned counsel for the petitioner in Deepak Kumar Khivasara's case is also of no avail to the petitioner because in the said case, the Hon'ble Division Bench of this Court was not seized of a controversy regarding the availability of a statutory remedy against the impugned action. The Court examined the matter only in the context as to whether the availability of an alternative remedy on the basis of the Full Bench decision rendered by this Court in the case of Gopi Lal Teli v. State of Rajasthan & Others, reported in 1995 (2) WLC 1 , could bar the litigants' right to approach the High Court in the writ jurisdiction. Even in Gopi Lal Teli's case, the Hon'ble Full Bench refused to lay down straight jacket circumstances/grounds exhaustively in which this Court inspite of availability of alternative remedies could make interference in the writ jurisdiction under Section 226 of the Constitution of India. Even in Gopi Lal Teli's case, the Hon'ble Full Bench refused to lay down straight jacket circumstances/grounds exhaustively in which this Court inspite of availability of alternative remedies could make interference in the writ jurisdiction under Section 226 of the Constitution of India. In the case at hand, the Court is not seized of a situation, wherein the maintainability of the writ petition is challenged on the ground of alternative remedy but the situation is one where the objection of maintainability is on the ground of availability of a statutory remedy. The remedy of a statutory appeal cannot be equated to any other alternative remedy. 12. Likewise, in the case of Harbanslal Sahnia (supra), the Hon'ble Supreme Court was examining the situation wherein the litigant had approached the Court for enforcement of his fundamental right and in that situation, the availability of an alternative remedy of initiating the arbitration proceedings was held not to be a bar to the maintainability of the writ petition. 13. In the case of L.K. Verma (supra) relied upon by the learned counsel for the petitioner, the Hon'ble Supreme Court held that the High Court, in exercise of its jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India in a given case, although may not entertain a writ petition inter-alia on the ground of availability of an alternative remedy but the said rule cannot be said to be of universal application. Despite existence of an alternative remedy, a writ court may exercise its discretionary jurisdiction of judicial review inter-alia in cases where the court or the Tribunal lacks inherent jurisdiction or for enforcement of a fundamental right or if there has been violation of the principle of natural justice or where vires of the Act is in question. This Court has already considered and turned down the arguments in this regard drawing a conclusion that none of these circumstances exist in the case at hand. Accordingly, the Court is not persuaded by the argument advanced by the learned counsel for the petitioner that availability of the remedy of appeal should not be treated as a hurdle against the petitioner's endeavour to assail the impugned order in this writ petition. Accordingly, the Court is not persuaded by the argument advanced by the learned counsel for the petitioner that availability of the remedy of appeal should not be treated as a hurdle against the petitioner's endeavour to assail the impugned order in this writ petition. The thrust of the argument of the learned counsel for the petitioner was as the writ petition has been entertained, the same should not be thrown out on the ground of availability of an alternative or statutory remedy. 14. This Court is of the view that the petitioner was put to guard when the respondents filed a preliminary objection regarding the maintainability of the writ petition long back and at that stage itself, he could have withdrawn the writ petition with liberty from this Court to approach the appellate authority by way of the statutory appeal. Not having done so, the petitioner cannot be permitted to take resort to a plea that the writ petition having been admitted long back, should not be thrown out on the ground of availability of statutory remedy. In this view of the matter, this Court is of the opinion that the writ petition preferred by the petitioner is liable to be dismissed on the ground of non-maintainability as, the petitioner had available to him, a statutory remedy of challenging the order of termination by filing a statutory appeal under Rules 31 and 32 of the Staff Regulations. The writ petition is thus dismissed in the above terms. No order as to costs.