Court No. - 39
Case :- WRIT - A No. - 17807 of 2018 Petitioner :- Dr. Radha Kant Dixit Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 4 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Vikram D. Chauhan,Shri. V.K. Upadhyay, Sr. Advocate Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.
Hon'ble B. Amit Sthalekar,J. Hon'ble Jayant Banerji,J.
Heard Sri V.K. Upadhyaya, learned senior counsel assisted by Sri Vikram D. Chauhan, for the petitioner and the learned Standing Counsel appearing for the respondents.
The petitioner in the writ petition is seeking quashing of the orders dated 25.6.2018 and 27.6.2018, passed by the Joint Director, Treasury and Pension, Varanasi Mandal, Varanasi and Addl. Director, Treasury and Pension, Varanasi Mandal, Varanasi, respectively.
The contention of the petitioner is that his pension was earlier fixed treating his qualifying service to be 23 years, 4 months and 27 days. This was amended by the impugned orders and qualifying service was treated to be 17 years, 4 months and 8 days as a result of which, the pension of the petitioner has been reduced. It has been further directed that the excess pension paid to the petitioner be adjusted against the amount to be paid to the petitioner in future.
Learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that no recovery can be made from a retired employee by way of adjustment in the pension of the petitioner and secondly no show cause notice or opportunity of hearing was given to the petitioner before the impugned orders were passed.
We have gone through the impugned orders and find that there is nothing to indicate that before reducing the petitioner's pension or ordering for recovery, any show cause notice or opportunity of hearing was given to the petitioner, whereas this is a mandatory requirement of principles of natural justice which the respondents failed to comply with.
Learned Standing Counsel also could not show from the impugned orders whether any opportunity was given to the petitioner before the same were passed.
We, therefore, set aside the impugned orders dated 25.6.2018 and 27.6.2018 (Annexure 4 and 5 to the writ petition). The respondent no.3 will be at liberty to pass a fresh order in accordance with law but only after giving opportunity of hearing to the petitioner and taking into account the law laid down by the Supreme Court with regard to the recovery of monies from retired employees.
Subject to above, the writ petition stands allowed.
Order Date :- 21.8.2018 sfa/