PREM KUMAR Vs. INDIAN ROAD CONSTRUCTION COMPANY LTD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By this common judgment, this court proposes to dispose of both, the writ petition and the contempt petition. For the sake of convenience, facts of WP(C) No.5023/1999 are taken note of.

(2.) The petitioner has filed the present petition, praying inter alia, amongst others, for issuance of writ of certiorari, for quashing the letters dated 16th April, 1999 and 29th June, 1999, issued by respondents, Indian Road Construction Corporation Ltd (hereinafter referred to as 'the I.R.C.C.') calling upon the petitioner to pay a sum of Rs.75,829.80 paise purportedly released as excess advance to the petitioner on account of foreign tour settlement claim towards Travel allowance/Dearness allowance, and for quashing a resolution passed by the Board of Directors of I.R.C.C.L. in their meeting held on 28th June, 1999, making the instructions issued by Department of Public Enterprises (for short `DPE') dated 20th September, 1995 enforceable from the date of issue of the Office Memorandum dated 11th October, 1995 by the Ministry of Surface Transport, Government of India (hereinafter referred to as `the MOST').

(3.) The undisputed facts of the case are that the petitioner was employed as Manager (Mechanical) with the I.R.C.C., a company incorporated under the Companies Act, 1956. The I.R.C.C., who was in the business of carrying out construction activities, was working in the year 1978-79 on a project in Libya, which was finally handed over to its client in October 1993. In the meeting of the Board of Directors of the I.R.C.C. held on 4th August, 1977, the RBI rules/guidelines for payment of daily allowance to its employees who were travelling abroad were adopted. The aforesaid guidelines were revised by the RBI on 6th August, 1994 fixing the daily allowance of all the employees in PSUs who were travelling abroad.