1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION WRIT PETITION NO. 9362 OF 2009 Ranjana Ashok Nalavade ........ Petitioner versus Vijay Sadanand Dhere & ors. ........Respondent. Mr. Amit Borkar adv. for the Petitioner Mr. S.S. Patwardhan, adv. for the Respondents 1 and 2. CORAM: A. P DESHPANDE, J. DATED : 18th November, 2009. P. C.: 1. The Petitioner is the original Plaintiff who is working as Headmistress in a recognized school which is admitted to grants. The service conditions of the employees working in the Primary and Secondary Schools are governed and regulated by the provisions of the Maharashtra Employees of Private Schools (Conditions of Service) Regulation Act, 1977 (in short (MEPS Act) and Rules framed thereunder. The Act provides for disciplinary proceedings and the procedure therefore is regulated by the Rules. In the present case, the President of Society/Trust has served the statement of allegations on the Petitioner and called her explanation touching the acts of misconduct enumerated in the notice. After replying the same, the Petitioner instituted a suit 2 calling in question the show cause notice and the statement of allegations as illegal and void-ab-initio. The temporary injunction application was moved by the Petitioner seeking to restrain the Defendants from constituting the Inquiry Committee which would inquire into the charges. The Trial Court granted the temporary injunction, consequent upon which, the Inquiry Committee could not be constituted and the matter did not proceed further. However, the miscellaneous civil appeal filed by the Respondent/Defendants challenging the order passed by the Trial Court granting temporary injunction came to be allowed by the District Judge and the order granting temporary injunction passed by the Trial Court has been set aside. It is this order passed in appeal which is challenged by filing the present Writ Petition. 2. The main ground on which the Petitioner/Plaintiff has challenged the show cause notice and the statement of allegations is that the Defendant no.1 who claims to be the President of Society/Trust is in fact not the President and hence, he cannot initiate the disciplinary proceedings against the present Petitioner. According to the petitioner, there is a dispute pending between two groups in the management and till the said dispute is adjudicated, the present President cannot claim the said status. 3. It is a matter of common knowledge that ordinarily court do not stay show cause notices and/or Inquiry proceedings for the obvious reason that after conclusion of the inquiry as and when and if and in case an order of punishment is passed and the same is challenged, the legality and validity of all the stages of inquiry 3 can be gone into. It will not be out of place to mention that a separate forum has been carved out in the MEPS Act and the rules made thereunder for adjudicating the disputes between the management and the employee and in the event if the present petitioner is found guilty of the acts of misconduct and is punished , it shall be open for the petitioner to raise a grievance at that stage before the appropriate forum. 4. According to the learned counsel for the petitioner, the Inquiry Committee which is to be constituted under the rules is dominated by the members of the management and hence the petitioner’s apprehension that her services would be terminated is well founded. Suffice it to state that in the event if the services of the petitioner are terminated, an appeal against such order is provided for under the Act before the Presiding Officer of the School Tribunal and it is at that stage when the legality of the termination would be questioned that the Tribunal would be in a position to examine as to whether the given President of the society is vested with an authority to act as such. All contentions raised in the suit would be available to the petitioner in the appeal that would be required to be filed in the event if a penal action is taken against the petitioner. As the First Appellate Court has recorded a prima facie finding in favour of the defendant no.1 that he is the President of the society/trust, no interference with the said finding is called for in this petition at this stage. The said question can be appropriately dealt with once the inquiry is over and an order of punishment if passed and challenged. It would be 4 a pre-mature exercise to go into the said disputed questions of fact. No patent illegality has been pointed out for this court to interfere with the impugned order. In the result the petition stands summarily rejected. (A. P. Deshpande, J.)