ORDER : (C.M. Application No.32438 of 2011) 1. The application seeks condonation of delay in filing the Special Appeal. 2. For reasons given in the affidavit in support of the application for condonation of delay, the delay in filing the appeal is hereby condoned. 3. The application is accordingly allowed. 4. We have heard learned counsel for appellant Sri Jyotinjay Verma, learned counsel for respondent No. 1 Sri Vinod Kumar Gupta Advocate holding brief of Sri Pt. S. Chandra learned counsel for respondent no. 1 and Sri Amitabh Shukla, learned counsel for the State. 5. This appeal has been filed against the order dated 28.10.2010 passed in Writ Petition No. 7514 (S/S) of 2010 whereby the opposite parties were directed to pay regular salary to the petitioner every month. 6. As per the pleadings in the appeal and the affidavit, filed in support of the application for stay, one Pawan Kumar filed the aforesaid Writ Petition praying for a direction to the opposite parties to pay salary to him for the Class IV post of Peon with all consequential benefits along with arrears of salary dues since 1.05.2000 along with interest. It has been stated that the said person had claimed to have been appointed in the Dayanand Junior High School, Shastri Nagar, Arya Samaj, Sultanpur on the Class IV Post of Peon with effect from 01.05.2000. The said school was said to have been aided and recognized institution imparting education up to Class VIII and, therefore, was covered by the provisions of the Basic Education Act, 1972 and other concomitant Acts and Rules. It has been further stated that the petitioner had claimed that he was duly appointed by the Management of the School but was compelled to file the Writ Petition since he was not paid salary for the said post by the authorities of the State Government despite repeated representations. While calling for the opposite parties to file their counter affidavit and issuing notices to the Management of the School, direction for payment of regular salary has been issued by means of the order dated 28.10.2010. 7. While calling for the opposite parties to file their counter affidavit and issuing notices to the Management of the School, direction for payment of regular salary has been issued by means of the order dated 28.10.2010. 7. Sri Jyotinjay Verma, learned counsel for the appellant has assailed the order dated 28.10.2010 on the following grounds:- (a) The order has granted final relief at the interim stage itself, which could not have been done; (b) The order impugned is unreasoned and has been passed without considering all the relevant facts and circumstances of the case and without waiting for a written response from the State authorities which has been burdened with the payment of salary; (c) The impugned order has been passed ignoring the settled principles relating to grant of writ in the nature of mandamus. (d) The learned Single Judge has passed the impugned order without adverting to the fact that the Writ Petition had been filed with considerable delay of almost a decade. Learned counsel for the appellant has relied upon the following decisions of Hon'ble the Supreme Court: 1. Raja Khan v. U.P. Sunni Central Waqf Board and another, reported in 2011 (29) LCD 67 ; 2. Pramod Kumar v. U.P. Secondary Education Services Commission and others reported in (2008) 7 SCC 153 ; and 3. Amrit Lal Berry v. Collector of Central Excise, reported in (1975) 4 SCC 714 . 8. Learned counsel appearing on behalf of respondent no. 1 Pawan Kumar has, at the very outset, challenged the maintainability of the Special Appeal on the ground that the order impugned in the appeal is merely interlocutory in nature and does not come within the ambit of 'judgment' and since the nature of the order is not final, the Special Appeal would be barred under the Provisions of Chapter VIII Rule 5 of the Rules of this Court, 1952. He has refuted the assertions made by learned counsel for the appellant with the submission that the order impugned does not grant the final relief and has been passed after consideration of the relevant facts and circumstances of the case. He has relied upon the judgment rendered in the case of Basic Shiksha Adhikari, Ambedkar Nagar v. Smt. Mandari Chaudhary and others, reported in 2011 (29) LCD 74 and the Full Bench decision in Ashutosh Shrotriya and others v. Vice Chancellor, Dr. He has relied upon the judgment rendered in the case of Basic Shiksha Adhikari, Ambedkar Nagar v. Smt. Mandari Chaudhary and others, reported in 2011 (29) LCD 74 and the Full Bench decision in Ashutosh Shrotriya and others v. Vice Chancellor, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar University and others reported in (2015) 4 UPLBEC 2673 to support his submissions. 9. Heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the record. 10. For the purpose of determining maintainability of the Special Appeal, it would be pertinent to notice the prayer made in the writ petition and the order impugned herein. Prayer made in Writ Petition No. 7514 (S/S) of 2010 is extracted as under:- "(i) Issue a writ, order or direction in the nature of Mandamus commanding the opposite parties to pay the salary to the petitioner for Class IV Post (Peon) regularly month to month with all other consequential benefits. (ii) Issue a writ, order or direction in the nature of Mandamus commanding the opposite parties to release and pay the arrears of salary due since 1.5.2000 with interest @ 18% per annum. (iii) Issue any other order or direction which this Hon'ble Court may deem fit and proper under the facts and circumstances of the case in favour of the petitioner in the interest of justice. (iv) Allow the cost of the writ petition in favour of the petitioner." The order dated 28.10.2010 impugned in the Special Appeal reads as under: "Heard Sri Sachin Tiwari learned counsel for the petitioner and Sri Jogendra Nath Verma for opposite party no. 3 who prays for and is granted four weeks' time to file counter affidavit. Rejoinder affidavit may be filed in a week. List thereafter. Issue notice to opposite party no. 5 returnable at an early date. Meanwhile the opposite parties are directed to pay regular salary every month." 11. So far as the issue regarding maintainability of the Special Appeal is concerned, it can be seen from the Full Bench decision in the case of Ashutosh Shrotriya (supra) that for an order to be called interlocutory, it should merely be a procedural order calling for counter and rejoinder affidavits in order to form a considered view and such a procedural order would not be amenable to Special Appeal since it neither decides anything nor does it have the trappings of finality. It has been noticed that in case a party to the proceedings seeks to press interim relief even before filing of a counter affidavit on the ground that a situation of irretrievable injustice may result or that its substantive rights would be adversely affected in the meantime, such an argument must be addressed before the learned Single Judge which should be dealt with, however briefly, consistent with the stage of the case. It has been held whether an interlocutory order would amount to a judgment would depend upon whether the order decides matters of the moment; or is of such a nature that would affect the vital and valuable rights of the parties to the lis. The relevant paragraph 34 of the said Judgment is as follows:- "34. The area which both the judgments in Shah Babulal Khinji and Midnapore Peoples' Coop Bank Ltd. leave open to be considered is whether the order which is sought to be placed in issue in appeal, though passed at an interlocutory stage, is of a nature that would affect the vital and valuable rights of parties and work serious injustice to the party concerned. An order, which has the consequence of adversely affecting the valuable rights of a party has the characteristics or trappings of finality and has, therefore, been held to be a 'judgment' which is amenable to the appellate jurisdiction. For the purpose of this proceeding, it would not be appropriate for the Court to draw an exhaustive catalogue of the circumstances in which an order of the learned Single Judge declining to even take note of a prayer for interim relief may result in an irreversible situation or irretrievable injustice that would affect valuable and substantive rights of a party to the lis. Ultimately, as the Supreme Court held in the decision in Central Mine Planning and Design Institute, whether the order is a final determination affecting vital and valuable rights and obligations of the parties concerned has to be ascertained on the facts of each case. Evidently, there is a clear category of cases where an order is purely of a processual nature in aid of the final progression of a case and which neither determines nor has the effect of determining vital and substantive rights as between the contesting parties. Evidently, there is a clear category of cases where an order is purely of a processual nature in aid of the final progression of a case and which neither determines nor has the effect of determining vital and substantive rights as between the contesting parties. The test to be applied is whether the order of the learned Single Judge has trappings of finality in the sense that the consequence of the order is to affect vital and valuable rights of the parties and to cause or work serious injustice to the party concerned. The judgments of the Supreme Court leave it open to the appellate court to determine in the facts of each case whether these tests which have been laid down consistently for defining the ambit of the expression 'judgment' are fulfilled in the facts of each case. The judgment in Ghisai Ram Krishak Vidyalaya Samiti cannot be read as taking away the discretion of the appellate court and its unquestioned jurisdiction to enquire into the maintainability of an appeal on the tests which have been laid down by the Supreme Court." (emphasized by us) 12. Hon'ble the Supreme Court in the case of Shah Babulal Khimji v. Jayaben D. Kania and another reported in (1981) 4 SCC 8 has also dealt with the matter regarding maintainability of Special Appeal against interlocutory orders and has held that every interlocutory order cannot be regarded as a judgment but only those orders would be judgments which decide matters of moment or affect vital and valuable rights of the parties and worked serious injustice to the party concerned. It has been further held that although the Trial Judge has the discretion to pass an interlocutory order but if it causes gross injustice to the defendant who is deprived of a valuable right of defence and contains the attributes and characteristics of finality, must be treated as a judgment within the meaning of the Letters Patent. The relevant paragraphs of the said Judgment are as follows:- "114. The relevant paragraphs of the said Judgment are as follows:- "114. In the course of the trial, the trial Judge may pass a number of orders whereby some of the various steps to be taken by the parties in prosecution of the suit may be of a routine nature while other orders may cause some inconvenience to one party or the other, e.g., an order refusing an adjournment, an order refusing to summon an additional witness or documents, an order refusing to condone delay in filing documents, after the first date of hearing an order of costs to one of the parties for its default or an order exercising discretion in respect of a procedural matter against one party or the other. Such orders are purely interlocutory and cannot constitute judgments because it will always be open to the aggrieved party to make a grievance of the order passed against the party concerned in the appeal against the final judgment passed by the trial Judge." "115. Thus, in other words every interlocutory order cannot be regarded as a judgment but only those orders would be judgments which decide matters of moment or affect vital and valuable rights of the parties and which work serious injustice to the party concerned. Similarly, orders passed by the trial Judge deciding question of admissibility or relevancy of a document also cannot be treated as judgments because the grievance on this score can be corrected by the appellate court in appeal against the final judgment." (emphasized by us) 13. It is apparent that the learned Single Judge had the absolute discretion of granting an interlocutory order, but at the same time it should have contained reasons for granting interim relief even before filing of a counter affidavit particularly, if a situation of irretrievable injustice would have resulted or that substantive right of the petitioner would have been adversely affected during pendency of the Writ Petition. It was also incumbent upon the learned Single Judge to have dealt with the right of the petitioner for the grant of interim relief prior to filing of the counter affidavit and also to have addressed the arguments raised by learned counsel for the opposite parties. It was also incumbent upon the learned Single Judge to have dealt with the right of the petitioner for the grant of interim relief prior to filing of the counter affidavit and also to have addressed the arguments raised by learned counsel for the opposite parties. The aforesaid proposition has been discussed in paragraph 47 in the case of Kranti Associates (P) Ltd. and another v. Masood Ahmed Khan and others, reported in (2010) 9 SCC 496 and also in paragraph 37 of Ashutosh Shrotriya (supra), which are extracted as under:- "47. Summarising the above discussion, this Court holds: (a) In India the judicial trend has always been to record reasons, even in administrative decisions, if such decisions affect anyone prejudicially. (b) A quasi-judicial authority must record reasons in support of its conclusions. (c) Insistence on recording of reasons is meant to serve the wider principle of justice that justice must not only be done it must also appear to be done as well. (d) Recording of reasons also operates as a valid restraint on any possible arbitrary exercise of judicial and quasi-judicial or even administrative power. (e) Reasons reassure that discretion has been exercised by the decision-maker on relevant grounds and by disregarding extraneous considerations. (f) Reasons have virtually become as indispensable a component of a decision-making process as observing principles of natural justice by judicial, quasi-judicial and even by administrative bodies. (g) Reasons facilitate the process of judicial review by superior courts. (h) The ongoing judicial trend in all countries committed to rule of law and constitutional governance is in favour of reasoned decisions based on relevant facts. This is virtually the lifeblood of judicial decision-making justifying the principle that reason is the soul of justice. (i) Judicial or even quasi-judicial opinions these days can be as different as the judges and authorities who deliver them. All these decisions serve one common purpose which is to demonstrate by reason that the relevant factors have been objectively considered. This is important for sustaining the litigants' faith in the justice delivery system. (j) Insistence on reason is a requirement for both judicial accountability and transparency. (k) If a judge or a quasi-judicial authority is not candid enough about his/her decision-making process then it is impossible to know whether the person deciding is faithful to the doctrine of precedent or to principles of incrementalism. (j) Insistence on reason is a requirement for both judicial accountability and transparency. (k) If a judge or a quasi-judicial authority is not candid enough about his/her decision-making process then it is impossible to know whether the person deciding is faithful to the doctrine of precedent or to principles of incrementalism. (l) Reasons in support of decisions must be cogent, clear and succinct. A pretence of reasons or "rubber-stamp reasons" is not to be equated with a valid decision-making process. (m) It cannot be doubted that transparency is the sine qua non of restraint on abuse of judicial powers. Transparency in decision-making not only makes the judges and decision-makers less prone to errors but also makes them subject to broader scrutiny. (See David Shapiro in Defence of Judicial Candor [(1987) 100 Harvard Law Review 731-37].) (n) Since the requirement to record reasons emanates from the broad doctrine of fairness in decision-making, the said requirement is now virtually a component of human rights and was considered part of Strasbourg Jurisprudence. See Ruiz Torija v. Spain [(1994) 19 EHRR 553], at 562 para 29 and Anya v. University of Oxford, 2001 EWCA Civ 405 (CA)], wherein the Court referred to Article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights which requires, "adequate and intelligent reasons must be given for judicial decisions". (o) In all common law jurisdictions judgments play a vital role in setting up precedents for the future. Therefore, for development of law, requirement of giving reasons for the decision is of the essence and is virtually a part of "due process". Paragraph 37 of Ashutosh Shrotriya (supra) is as follows:- "37. In view of the aforesaid discussions, we answer the question of law referred to the Full Bench by holding that, an order of a learned Single Judge upon a petition under Articles 226 or 227 of the Constitution only calling for counter and rejoinder affidavits is merely a procedural order in aid of the progression of the case. An order of this nature which is purely of a procedural nature in aid of the progression of the case and to enable the Court to form a considered view after a counter affidavit and a rejoinder are filed would not be amenable to a special appeal under Chapter VIII Rule 5. Such an order does not decide anything nor does it have the trappings of finality. Such an order does not decide anything nor does it have the trappings of finality. If a party to the proceedings seeks to press an application for ad interim relief of a protective nature even before a counter affidavit is filed, on the ground that a situation of irretrievable injustice may result or that its substantive rights would be adversely affected in the meantime, such an argument must be addressed before the Single Judge. If such an argument is urged, it should be dealt with however briefly, consistent with the stage of the case, by the Single Judge. It is for the Division Bench hearing the special appeal to consider whether the order decides matters of moment or is of such a nature that would affect the vital and valuable rights of the parties and causes serious injustice to the concerned party." 14. In the present case, a perusal of the order impugned clearly indicates that no reason whatsoever has been recorded for directing the payment of regular salary to the petitioner every month. No right of the petitioner for the grant of such an interim relief has been addressed nor does the order indicate as to the irretrievable injustice or adverse effect on the substantive right of the petitioner, in case such an interlocutory order was not granted. In the circumstances of the case, it is clear that such an order as impugned in the present appeal is not merely procedural and has in fact affected the vital and valuable right of the opposite parties/appellant which has worked serious injustice and as such the present appeal would be maintainable in the light of proposition of law laid down in the aforementioned cases. 15. A perusal of the pleadings also indicates that the learned Single Judge has not adverted to the fact that the grant of interim relief to the petitioner in the manner it has been done by the impugned order clearly amounts to grant of final relief at the interim stage itself and has burdened the State authorities with the payment of salary to the petitioner without even a cursory discussion regarding the right of the petitioner for the grant of regular salary from the State exchequer. Even the fact that the writ petition had been filed with considerable delay of almost a decade has not been adverted to in the impugned order. 16. Even the fact that the writ petition had been filed with considerable delay of almost a decade has not been adverted to in the impugned order. 16. Learned counsel for the respondent/writ petitioner has relied upon the decision in Basic Shiksha Adhikari, Ambedkar Nagar v. Smt. Mandari Chaudhary and others (supra) to substantiate his argument that interim orders can be passed with regard to payment of salary. A reading of the aforesaid judgment clearly indicates that the facts and circumstances therein were completely different from the present one inasmuch as in the decision in Basic Shiksha Adhikari, Ambedkar Nagar v. Smt. Mandari Chaudhary and others (supra), a finding had been recorded that undisputedly approval for appointment of the respondent therein was granted in the year 1988 consequent to their appointment in the year 1984. This Court granted the interim relief of payment of salary on account of the fact that the order approving the appointment had neither been recalled nor cancelled, which is not so in the present case because respondent/writ petitioner's appointment had never been approved by the State authorities and, therefore the said judgment would be inapplicable in the present matter. 17. In view of the facts and circumstances of the case as juxtaposed with the relevant law on the point, it is apparent that the order impugned amounts to grant of final relief at the interim stage. Furthermore, the order impugned has been passed without recording any reason for the grant of interim relief even before calling for a counter affidavit and without considering the relevant facts. The grounds (a) and (b) taken by the appellant and noted in earlier part of the judgment therefore stand substantiated. However with regard to grounds (c) and (d), since only a limited question has been raised in the present appeal, we do not deem it appropriate at this stage to consider the rights of the respondent/writ petitioner with regard to the payment of regular salary, which would necessarily abide the final judgment to be rendered in the Writ Petition. 18. In view of the aforesaid, the Special Appeal stands allowed. Order dated 28.10.2010 rendered by learned Single Judge is set aside, however without prejudice to the rights of the parties to agitate all the issues before the writ court.