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11. It is a settled law that an officer holding an additional or current duty charge cannot exercise statutory powers vested in a full-fledged incumbent of the post. Since Professor Yogesh Singh was holding an additional charge of the Vice-Chancellor prior to 14.07.2016, he could not exercise the power of accepting resignation, which is not an administrative or executive function but is purely a statutory function. In this context, reliance was placed on Fundamental Rule 49 and Rule 12(2) of the CCS (CCA) Rules, 1965 as well as MHA O.M. dated 24.01.1963 and MHRD letter dated 07.08.2014. Reliance was also placed on the judgment of the Division Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court in Hardwari Lal v. Union of India, 1990 SCC OnLine P&H 313.

18. It is wrong to contend on behalf of the Petitioner that the resignation was not accepted by a Competent Authority. Statute 10(2)(o) of the First Statutes empowers BOM to delegate any/all its powers to the Vice-Chancellor. Under Statute 10(2)(i), the power to make appointment to a non-teaching post vests with the BOM, on recommendations of a Selection Committee, constituted for the purpose. In the present case, BOM had delegated all its powers to the Vice-Chancellor. Professor Yogesh Singh was given additional charge of a Vice-Chancellor and, therefore, he had the power and jurisdiction to accept the resignation of the Petitioner, as a delegatee of BOM and no illegality can be found with the said action.

25. The common thread that runs in the aforementioned DoPT O.M. and the judicial pronouncements on the subject, is that acceptance of resignation must be by a Competent Authority. It needs no gainsaying that if the resignation has not been accepted by an Authority having the competence or jurisdiction to do so, the acceptance will be non-est and illegal in the eyes of law and it shall be open to the employee to withdraw the resignation in such an eventuality. It further emerges from a plain reading of the DoPT O.M. dated 11.02.1988, relied upon by the Respondent and extracted hereinabove, that acceptance of resignation must be by the 'Appointing Authority' and once accepted by the Appointing Authority, i.e. the Competent Authority, resignation cannot be legally withdrawn. As a corollary, if the resignation is not accepted by the Appointing Authority, the order accepting the resignation is non-est in the eyes of law and has no legal validity or sanctity.

29. We are further of the view that acceptance of resignation or removal of a person from service are the conditions of service and power to accept resignation cannot be termed as merely an administrative power."

43. What follows from the above discussion is that the resignation tendered by the Petitioner was not accepted by a Competent Authority and was thus non-est in the eyes of law. Once the resignation was not validly accepted, it was open to the Petitioner to withdraw the same on 22.09.2016 and, therefore, the order rejecting the request of the Petitioner for withdrawal of the resignation is illegal and arbitrary and deserves to be quashed. In view of the aforesaid, this Court need not delve into the other contentions raised by the parties.