Court No. - 3
Case :- WRIT - A No. - 6281 of 2018 Petitioner :- Santosh Kumar Srivastava Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 3 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Akhilesh Kumar Singh Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.
Hon'ble Pankaj Mithal,J. Hon'ble Saral Srivastava,J.
Heard Sri Radha Kant Ojha, learned Senior Advocate for the petitioner and learned Standing Counsel for the respondents, who has obtained instructions pursuant to the direction of the Court dated 21.02.2018.
The petitioner retired from service on 31.01.2017 as DIG (Prison), Allahabad Range, Allahabad. He has been asked to pay penal rent for retaining the official accommodation beyond the period permitted.
It appears that the petitioner was transferred from Gonda to Lucknow Headquarter but he continued to retain a part of the official accommodation consisting of two rooms and a store for the period of 14.08.2010 to 30.08.2012.
The contention of the petitioner is that he had not over-stayed in the official residence at Gonda but in fact, the possession of the house was given to the new incumbent Sri V.S. Yadav and it is only with his consent that he kept his goods in the aforesaid two rooms.
In the instructions, it has also come that the petitioner even after retirement had over-stayed for 10 months in the official accommodation and therefore also is liable for payment of penal rent.
In this regard the submission of Sri Ojha is that no notice in respect of this over stay was ever given so as to determine the penal rent.
Lastly, it has been submitted by Sri Ojha that in addition to a sum of Rs. 1,75,000/- as penal rent after adding miscellaneous expenses, a sum of Rs. 2,72,084/- was retained from the gratuity vide order dated 11.08.2017. He also states that further a sum of Rs. 2,72,084 was again withheld from the arrears of the ACP admissible to the petitioner on 16.08.2017. In this way, the aforesaid amount of penal rent and miscellaneous expenses are sought to be recovered from the petitioner twice.
Sri Ojha has even placed reliance upon Rule 45 of the Financial Hand Book so as to allege that once the official accommodation is allotted to another person, the earlier occupant seizes to occupy the same and no penal rent is realizable in such a situation.
All these aspects of the matter have not dealt with by the impugned order dated 20.06.2017, by which the representation of the petitioner has been rejected. The said order does not even mention about the over stay of the petitioner in the official accommodation after retirement much less about withholding the penal rent and miscellaneous expenses twice, once from the gratuity and secondly from the arrears of ACP.
In view of the facts and circumstances of the case, we are of the view that the matter requires reconsideration by the respondent no. 2 Inspector General of Prison, U.P. Lucknow. Accordingly, we quash the order dated 20.06.2017 filed as annexure- 1 to the writ petition and direct the respondent no. 2 to pass a fresh order in accordance with law dealing with all the above aspects of the matter within a period of two months from today, and it is made clear that as the amount of penal rent and miscellaneous expenses have already been withheld from the dues of the petitioner, no further deduction/recovery in this regard shall be made till the passing of the fresh order.
The writ petition is disposed off.
Order Date :- 26.2.2018 Israr