JUDGMENT
1. The petitioner in this writ petition has questioned a show-cause notice.
2. Mr. Sharma, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner, submits that the impugned show-cause notice should not have been issued as thereby the penalty proceedings are sought to be revived which were earlier dropped. Such a contention, in our opinion, can be raised before the concerned respondent. It is now well settled that although this court in exercise of its writ jurisdiction in entertaining a writ petition, wherein determination of writ jurisdictional fact is involved, such a power should not ordinarily be exercised, keeping in view the fact that such jurisdictional fact can be raised, at the first instance before the competent authority. In Express Newspapers (Pvt.) Ltd. v. Their Workmen , the apex court has held as under :
“The High Court undoubtedly has jurisdiction to ask the Industrial Tribunal to stay its hands and to embark upon the preliminary enquiry itself. The jurisdiction of the High Court to adopt this course cannot be, and is
indeed not disputed. But would it be proper for the High Court to adopt such a course unless the ends of justice seem to make it necessary to do so ? Normally, the questions of fact, though they may be jurisdictional facts the decision of which depends upon the appreciation of evidence, should be left to be tried by the Special Tribunals constituted for that purpose. If and after the Special Tribunals try the preliminary issue in respect of such jurisdictional facts, it would be open to the aggrieved party to take that matter before the High Court by a writ petition and ask for an appropriate writ. Speaking generally, it would not be proper or appropriate that the initial jurisdiction of the Special Tribunal to deal with these jurisdictional facts should be circumvented and the decision of such a preliminary issue brought before a High Court in its writ jurisdiction. We wish to point out that in making these observations, we do not propose to lay down any fixed or inflexible Rule ; whether or not even the preliminary facts should be tried by a High Court in a writ petition, must naturally depend upon the circumstances of each case and upon the nature of the preliminary issue raised between the parties. Having regard to the circumstances of the present dispute, we think the court of appeal was right in taking the view that the preliminary issue should more appropriately be dealt with by the Tribunal. The appeal court has made it clear that any party who feels aggrieved by the finding of the Tribunal on this preliminary issue may move the High Court in accordance with law. Therefore, we are not prepared to accept Mr. Sastri’s argument that the appeal court was wrong in reversing the conclusion of the trial judge in so far as the trial judge proceeded to deal with the question as to whether the action of the appellant was a closure or a lock-out.”
3. Yet again in State of Uttar Pradesh v. Shri Brahm Datt Sharma, , the apex court held as under :
“The High Court was not justified in quashing the show-cause notice. When a show-cause notice is issued to a Government servant under a statutory provision calling upon him to show cause, ordinarily the Government servant must place his case before the authority concerned by showing cause and the courts should be reluctant to interfere with the notice at that stage unless the notice is shown to have been issued palpably without any authority of law. The purpose of issuing show-cause notice is to afford opportunity of hearing to the Government servant and once cause is shown it is open to the Government to consider the matter in the light of the facts and submissions placed by the Government servant and only thereafter a final decision in the matter could be taken. Interference by the court before that stage would be premature. The High Court in our opinion ought not to have interfered with the show-cause notice.”
4. Having regard to the aforementioned pronouncements we are of the opinion that the petitioner may raise the contention raised in this writ petition
before the concerned respondent. We are, therefore of the view that this writ petition could not and should not be entertained at the show cause stage.
5. The petition is dismissed for the aforementioned reasons.