An employer cannot belatedly revive a quashed removal after implementing reinstatement.

The petitioner, a conductor, was removed from service in 1982.

In 1987, the High Court quashed the removal and appellate orders because the officers who had made them lacked competence, while reserving liberty for the competent authority to pass fresh orders in accordance with law

The Corporation directed the petitioner to resume duty in March 1987 and thereafter continued to treat him as an employee: it dealt with his suspension and service-benefit claims and granted him a time scale in 2001.

In 2007, the Corporation issued a show-cause notice asserting that the 1982 removal had been validated by the 1987 Act.

The petitioner challenged the notice.

He superannuated in 2011 while the petition was pending.

1. Whether, after implementing the 1987 judgment and treating the petitioner as an employee for nearly twenty years, the Corporation could rely on the validating enactment to reopen his service status by the 2007 notice

2. Whether the Court should interfere with the show-cause notice where it proceeded on the premise that the removal order had been revived, despite the Corporation’s subsequent conduct and the delay

Sections 2 and 3 of the U.P. State Road Transport Corporation Employees (Other than Officers) (Appointing Authorities) Act, 1987, operating retrospectively from 19 June 1981, cured the defect concerning the appointing authority and validated specified actions taken by authorised officers, notwithstanding a judgment, decree or order to the contrary

In Raghu Batola v. State of U.P., 2015:AHC:103266-DB, following Nagendra Prakash Sharma v. Regional Manager, 1988 UPLBEC 1555, the validating legislation was upheld in the context of a prompt post-enactment order restoring a termination

The judgment also applied the principles that administrative action must meet standards of fairness, promptness and non-arbitrariness; an employer’s conduct does not defeat a validating enactment by estoppel, but prolonged reliance on a service status may make its belated unilateral reversal impermissible

Although courts ordinarily do not intervene at the show-cause stage, intervention is justified where the notice rests on a legally impermissible foundation

The validating Act cured the original defect in the removal order, but the Court distinguished Raghu Batola: there, the employer acted soon after the legislation, whereas here the Corporation implemented the 1987 judgment, retained the petitioner in service and made repeated service-related decisions over nearly two decades

That conduct did not estop the Corporation from relying on the Act, but it made the unexplained 2007 attempt to revive the removal arbitrary and inconsistent with fairness and promptness.

If the Corporation considered the validating Act to have affected the earlier judgment, it should have sought appropriate relief from the Court rather than unilaterally reopening the petitioner’s status after years of treating him as an employee

The notice therefore did not raise an open question suitable for ordinary show-cause proceedings; it assumed that the removal had revived and the reinstatement had become ineffective

It directed the competent authority to determine and release the petitioner’s retiral dues lawfully admissible within three months of receiving a certified copy of the judgment, with simple interest at 6% per annum on each payable component from its due date until payment

Pending applications were disposed of, with no order as to costs.