Court No. - 5
Case :- WRIT - A No. - 8502 of 2021 Petitioner :- Ram Avatar Pandey Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 4 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Shravan Kumar Dubey Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.,Pranjal Mehrotra
Hon'ble Saral Srivastava,J.
Heard learned counsel for the petitioner,learned Standing Counsel appearing on behalf of the State- respondent no.1 and Sri Pawan Kumar Mishra, Advocate holding brief of Sri Pranjal Mehrotra, learned counsel appearing for respondents no.2 to 5.
The petitioner, by means of the present writ petition, has prayed for quashing the order dated 21.6.2019 passed by respondent no.4 by which an amount of Rs.1,13,278/- has been recovered from the petitioner and, therefore, the recovery of the aforesaid amount is illegal.
Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that no notice or opportunity was afforded to the petitioner and the recovery on this ground is not sustainable in the eye of law. It is submitted that the approach of the respondents-authorities is very pathetic towards its employees, which is evident from the fact that for non payment of retiral dues, the petitioner approached this Court by filing a writ petition being Writ A No. 8665 of 2019, which was disposed of vide judgment and order dated 24.2.2020 and after the disposal of the writ petition, the retiral dues of the petitioner have been paid.
The facts, as stated above, are glaring, inasmuch as, a retired employee has approached this Court twice for his lawful dues against the illegal action of the respondents.
It is worth to mention that the Hon'ble Apex Court in the case of State of Punjab and others Vs. Rafiq Masih (White Washer) (2015) 4 SCC 334, has held that the recovery of the amount after retirement is not permissible and the decision of the Hon'ble Apex Court is rule of law.
Sri Pranjal Mehrotra, learned counsel for the respondents submits that the order in respect of payment of deducted amount of gratuity has been made on 4.2.2020. However, he could not tender explanation for delay of one and half years for non payment of amount. He further submits on instruction of the LawOfficer of U.P.Jal Nigam, Lucknow that all the dues of the petitioner shall be released within a period of two weeks' from today.
In view of the statement made by Sri Pranjal Mehrotra, learned counsel for the respondents, the writ petition is being disposed of with a direction to the respondents to release all the retiral dues to the petitioner including the amount, which has been ordered to be paid by order dated 4.2.2020, copy of which is taken on record.
The writ petition stands finally disposed of subject to the observations made above..
Order Date :- 27.7.2021 SKM