Allahabad High Court has upheld the verdict of a single-judge bench that had in May found the removal of the law officer and five teachers of Dr Shakuntala Misra National Rehabilitation University to be illegal.
The single-judge bench had also directed the university to reinstate them with all back wages and service consequences.
Dismissing an appeal by the university against the earlier order, a division bench of Justice AR Masoodi and Justice OP Shukla observed, “In absence of any fraud or misrepresentation having been committed by the respondents, including Law Officer Alok Mishra and teachers Dr Rajendra Kumar Srivastava, Dr Adya Shakti Rai, Avnish Chandra Mishra, Vipin Kumar Pandey and Mrityunjay Mishra, their selection cannot be cancelled after a long period of seven years.”
“This court does not find any reasons as to why the consequential relief, including back wages, should not be granted to the law officer and the teachers,” the high court’s Lucknow bench observed.
Earlier, advocate Gaurav Mehrotra had submitted to the bench that the law officer and the teachers had been appointed during the tenure of the previous vice-chancellor Dr Nishith Rai but they were removed from service without holding a proper inquiry as soon as his term ended on the grounds that the selection committee had not been proper.
“The order of the single-judge bench is quite correct and there is no illegality in it and the university has filed the special appeal only to delay the reinstatement of the law officer and the teachers,” Mehrotra stressed.
Considering the entire matter, the division bench said, “This court does not find any plausible grounds agitated by the appellant university to have any substance and as such this court is not inclined to interfere with the judgment passed by the single-judge bench.”
