BANK OF PATIALA versus PHOOLPATI

Citation: [2005] 2 S.C.R. 345 · Decided: 23-02-2005 · Supreme Court of India · Bench: ARIJIT PASAYAT · Disposal: Appeal(s) allowed

Judgment (excerpt)

STAT_B BANK OF PATIALA 
A 
v. 
PHOOLPATI 
FEBRUARY 23, 2005 
[ARJJJT PASA YAT AND S.H. KAPADIA, JJ.] 
B 
Service Law : 
Resignation from service-Letter of withdrawal-Effect of-Employee 
submitting voluntary resignation to be effective from a given date-Prior to C 
that date employee sending another letter withdrawing the earlier one-Bank 
accepting the resignation and relieving the employee of its services-Later, 
employee died-His wife accepting service benefits of her husband-Later she 
filed a writ petition contending that the order relieving her husband from 
service was illegal-Prayer allowed by High Court-Held, withdrawal having D 
not been accepted by the Bank, High Court's order not justified. 
Respondent's husband an employee of appellant-Bank, submitted his 
resignation on 7.1.2002 requesting its acceptance w.e.f. ·1.3.2002. On 
4.2.2002 he sought to withdraw the said letter stating that at the time of 
sending the same he was ill and mentally disturbed. The Bank asked him E 
tc:- furnish proof of his illness, and stated that if he failed to do so, he would 
be relieved from service w.e.f. 1.3.2002. The Bank received a letter from 
the employee on 4.3.2002 reiterating the prayer for acceptance of his 
resignation. The Bank relieved him from service on 5.3.2002. On 8.6.2002 
the employee expired. The respondent accepted the service benefits of her 
husband. Later, she filed a writ petition before the High Court pleading F 
that her husband continued to be in Bank's service and the order directing 
t:tat he was relieved from service w.e.f. 5.3.2002 was illegal. The Division 
Bench of the High Court allowed the writ petition, holding that as the 
resignation was withdrawn much prior to the stipulated date of its 
acceptance, the Bank had no legal authority to relieve him. Aggrieved, the G 
Bank filed the present appeal. 
Allowing the appeal, the Court 
HELD : The factual position clearly shows that the employee had 
3~ 
H 
346 
SUPREME COURT REPORTS 
A tendered his resignation which was sought to be withdrawn. But the 
withdrawal was not accepted and subsequently there was reiteration of 
the prayer for voluntary resignation. The inevitable conclusion, therefore, 
is that the High Court was not justified in interfering with the order of 
appellant-Bank relieving the employee w.e.f. 5.3.2002 consequent upon 
B accepting his prayer for resignation. (348-G-H; 349-AI 
Union of India and Ors. v. Gopa/ Chandra Misra and Ors., 119781 2 
SCC 301; Bairam Gupta v. Union of India and Anr., (19871 Supp. SCC 228; 
J.N. Srivastava v. Union of India and Anr., (1988) 9 SCC 559; Nand Keshwar 
Prasadv. Indian Farmers Fertilisers Cooperative Ltd. and Ors., (1998) 5 SCC 
C 461 and Shambhu Murari Sinha v. Project and Development India Ltd., AIR 
(2002) SC 1341, referred to. 
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION : Civil Appeal No. 1363 of.2005. 
From the Judgment and Order dated 20.1.2004 of the Punjab . and 
D Haryana High Court in C.W.P. No. 11476 of 2003. 
G.L. Sanghi, Nalin Sangal, Deba Prasad Mohanty, Ms. Priyanka Agarwal 
and Anil Kumar Sangal with him for the Appellant. 
Raja Venkatappa Naik, Mrs.Sonia Mat?u, Vinod Bhaskar, Sanjeev 
E Sharda, Vijay Kumar Ravi, R.K. Gupta and Rameshwar Prasad Goyal for the 
Respondent. 
F 
G 
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by 
ARIJJT PASAYAT, J. Leave granted. / 
Challeng~ in this appeal is to the correctness of a judgment rendered by 
a Division Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court holding that the 
appellant-Bank was not justified in relieving Hari Ram, deceased husband of 
the respondent, from services of the Bank with effect from 5.3.2002 . 
. The factual background which is almost undisputed is as under: 
Late Hari Ram joined the services of the appellant-Bank on 9.1.1985. 
In the normal course, he would have retir~d on 6.6.2005. On 7.1.2002 he 
submitted his resignation to the Branch Manager of the Kungar Branch 
requesting its acceptance w .e.f. 1.3 .2002, which was received by the Bank on 
H 8. l.2002. On 4.2.2002 late Hari Ram sought to withdraw the proposed 
STATE BANK OF PATIALAv. PHOOLPATI [PASAYAT, .1.) 
347 
resignation. The ground indicated was that at the time of writing the letter A 
he was seriously ill, was suffering from fever, and due to the effect of 
medicines he was mentally disturbed. He, therefore, requested not to give 
effect to the letter. On receipt of the letter, appellant-Bank wrote back to him 
saying that since he had indicated to have written the lett

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