Court No. - 33
Case :- WRIT - A No. - 1631 of 2021 Petitioner :- Nathi Prasad Respondent :- Managing Director, Paschimanchal Electricity Distribution Corporation Ltd. And 3 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Basant Kumar Upadhyay,Ritesh Kumar Singh Counsel for Respondent :- Suman Kumar Yadav
Hon'ble Ashwani Kumar Mishra,J.
This petition is directed against an order dated 13.1.2021 contained in Annexure-11 to the writ petition, whereby provisional pension has been denied to petitioner on account of pendency of disciplinary inquiry.
Following orders were passed in the matter on 4.2.2021:-
"Petitioner retired from the employment of respondent Corporation on 31.12.2018. He has approached this Court with the grievance that retiral benefits due and payable to petitioner has not been released so far.
With similar grievance, an earlier petition was filed before this Court being No. 10553 of 2020, and the concerned authority has now passed an order which records that disciplinary action is pending against the petitioner, on account of which, regular pension cannot be paid. It is also recorded that provisional pension has not been sanctioned after 31.3.2019.
Even if regular pension is not being released to petitioner on account of pendency of disciplinary proceedings, there is no justification for the respondents not to release provisional pension to the petitioner. The authorities are otherwise supposed to conclude the pending disciplinary enquiry, expeditiously.
Matter requires consideration.
Notice on behalf of all the respondents is accepted by Sri S.K. Yadav. He may file a counter affidavit in the matter within six weeks from today. Rejoinder affidavit may be filed within two weeks, thereafter.
List thereafter.
In the meantime, petitioner shall be paid arrears of provisional pension as also current provisional pension, as and when it falls due from month to month. The respondents shall also make all endeavour to conclude the disciplinary enquiry, in which the petitioner undertakes to cooperate."
When the matter is taken up today, the Court is informed by the learned counsel for the parties that provisional pension has been sanctioned and paid to petitioner. Part of the GPF amount has also been released to petitioner.
It appears that the disciplinary inquiry initiated against the petitioner, while he was in service, has not been concluded so far. Petitioner has already retired on 31.12.2018 and the period of almost three years are about to expire. The respondents cannot be permitted to keep the disciplinary proceedings pending indefinitely and withhold the petitioner's retiral benefits for such reasons.
Sri Vinayak Ranjan, holding brief of Sri Kartikey Saran, learned counsel for the respondent states that the disciplinary inquiry shall be concluded expeditiously.
In that view of the matter, this petition stands disposed of with a direction upon the disciplinary authority i.e. respondent no.4 to conclude the disciplinary iniquiry within a period of 4 months from today. The arrears of provisional pension shall be released to petitioner within a month from today. An appropriate decision would be taken, in accordance with law and all admissible dues found payable to petitioner shall be released within a period of six weeks of the conclusion of the disciplinary inquiry, in terms of the final order.
Subject to the observations made above, this petition stands disposed off.
Order Date :- 29.10.2021 n.u.