Court No. - 5
Case :- WRIT - A No. - 9153 of 2021
Petitioner :- Inder Singh And 2 Others
Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 4 Others
Counsel for Petitioner :- Siddharth Khare,Sr. Advocate Ashok Khare
Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.
Hon'ble Saral Srivastava,J.
Heard Sri Siddharth Khare, learned counsel for the petitioners and Sri R.S. Umrao, learned Standing Counsel for the respondents.
The petitioners, who are three in numbers, have assailed the order dated 12.01.2021 passed by Inspector General of Registration U.P. Prayagraj and consequential orders dated 23.01.2021 and 27.01.2021 passed by Assistant Inspector General of Registration, Etawah by which pension of the petitioners has been stopped.
The case of the petitioners is that they were granted ad-hoc appointment under the orders passed by District Registration, Muzaffar Nagar in the year 1983. Pursuant to the appointment letter, petitioners joined their duties.
The District Registrar on 26.07.1985 issued an order terminating the services of the petitioners which was assailed by the petitioners in Writ Petition No.7643 of 1985 in which this Court stayed the operation of the order dated 26.07.1985 terminating the services of the petitioners.
Pursuant to the interim order passed by this Court, petitioners were allowed to continue in service. The Writ Petition No.7643 of 1985 was allowed by this Court by judgement and order dated 21.03.1996 and respondents were directed to regularise the services of the petitioners in accordance with rules as well as on the ratio laid down by the Supreme Court in the case of Khagesh Kumar and Others Vs. Inspector General of Registration & Others reported in 1995 Supplement (4) SCC 182.
The petitioners have retired in the year 2013 and 2018 respectively.
Pursuant to the retirement, petitioners have been extended pensionary benefits. Now by the impugned orders, pension of the petitioners has been stopped.
This Court by order dated 04.08.2021 directed the Standing Counsel to seek instruction in the matter, but no instruction has been supplied to the Standing Counsel by the department.
It is contended by the learned counsel for the petitioners that petitioners are confirmed employee and observation of the authority in the impugned orders that services of the petitioners were not regularised is incorrect and against the record. He submits that neither any notice nor any opportunity of hearing was afforded to the petitioners before passing the impugned orders, and had opportunity of hearing been given to the petitioners, they would placed correct facts before the authority concerned.
Learned Standing Counsel could not point out from the orders impugned that any notice or opportunity of hearing was afforded to the petitioner.
It is evident from the record that no notice or opportunity of hearing was afforded to the petitioners before passing the orders impugned, which the authority is under obligation to provide to petitioners, therefore, this Court finds that the impugned orders are not sustainable being in violation of principles of natural justice and are hereby quashed with liberty to respondent no.2- Inspector General of Registration, U.P. Prayagraj to pass fresh order after giving due notice and opportunity of hearing to petitioners within a period of three months from the date of production of copy of this order.
The writ petition is allowed subject to the observations made above.
Order Date :- 24.8.2021 Sattyarth