THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE L.NARASIMHA REDDY WRIT PETITION No.26123 of 2010 ORDER: The petitioner is working in Deccan Grameena Bank, respondent No.1 herein. Disciplinary proceedings were initiated against him and the disciplinary authority passed an order, dated 18.11.2006, imposing the punishment of reduction of basic pay by two stages in the time-scale for a period of two years. Feeling aggrieved by the order of reversion, the petitioner filed an appeal before respondent No.3. The appeal was rejected through order, dated 18.04.2007. The same is challenged in this writ petition. Heard the learned counsel for the petitioner and the learned Standing Counsel for the respondents. The only ground urged by the petitioner is that the appellate authority did not furnish any reasons while rejecting the appeal. Reliance is placed upon a judgment of this Court in Rani Lakshmi Bai Kshetriya Gramin Bank Vs. Jagdish Sharan Varshney and others[1]. After referring to the relevant facts up to the stage of filing the appeal, the Appellate Authority rejected the appeal through the following observations: “The Appellate Authority i.e. Board of Directors having examined the appeal submitted by you and went through all the relevant Records of Disciplinary Proceedings and arrived at consensus that, since no extenuating factors were brought in your defence, have upheld the punishment awarded by the Disciplinary Authority and disposed of the appeal accordingly”. Till recently, the view expressed by various Courts is that an Appellate Authority is not under obligation to furnish any independent reasons in case it affirms the order under appeal. Recently, the Supreme Court, in the judgment referred to supra, held that an Appellate Authority is under obligation to furnish reasons in support of its conclusions. The relevant paragraph reads as under: “In our opinion, an order of affirmation need not contain as elaborate reasons as an order of reversal, but that does not mean that the order of affirmation need not contain any reasons whatsoever. In fact, the said decision in Prabhu Dayal Grover case ((1995) 6 SCC 279) has itself stated that the appellate order should disclose application of mind. Whether there was an application of mind or not can only be disclosed by some reasons, at least in brief, mentioned in the order of the appellate authority. Hence, we cannot accept the proposition that an order of affirmation need not contain any reasons at all. That order must contain some reasons, at least in brief, so that one can know whether the appellate authority has applied its mind while affirming the order of the disciplinary authority.” Following the same, the writ petition is allowed on the short ground that the order of appellate authority is bereft of any reasons. The order, dated 18.04.2010, passed by the Appellate Authority is set aside and the matter is remanded for fresh consideration and disposal on merits. There shall be no order as to costs. _____________________ L.NARASIMHA REDDY,J Dt:25.10.2010 kdl [1] (2009) 4 SCC 240