MODI RAMSINGBHAI MAHADEVBHAI Vs. BHABHAR NAGAR PANCHAYAT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner was originally employed with respondent No. 1-Panchayat as an Engine Driver. At the relevant time, respondent No. 1-Panchayat was being governed by the then Bombay Village Panchayat Act, 1958 which came to be substituted by the Gujarat Panchayat Act, 1961. Section 325 of the 1961 Act, will therefore, govern the case of the petitioner and for that a reference may be made to cl. (X) of sub-sec. (2) of Sec. 325 which reads as under :

(2.) The petition has been filed with a prayer that the petitioner may be paid pension, gratuity and other retirement benefits which were due to him right from the date of his retirement which happens to be 23/07/1987. Ordinarily, he being a Panchayat employee there would have been no question of fastening any liability on State of Gujarat-respondent No. 2. However, at about the time when the petition came to be filed there was already a decision of this Court reported in AIR 1977 Gujarat 76 (Ramanlal Keshavlal Soni v. State of Gujarat) which came to be confirmed by the Supreme Court as per the decision reported in [1983 (1)] XXIV (1) GLR 708 (State of Gujarat v. Ramanlal Keshavlal Soni J. The position, therefore, is that all the employees of a given Panchayat will become State Government Employees irrespective of their original position. This being a 1983 decision, one would have expected the respondents to gracefully submit to it and entertain the legitimate request of the petitioner for pensionary and other retirement benefits. Unfortunately, the matter has been dragged on till today.

(3.) So far as respondent No. 1-Panchayat is concerned, by an affidavit in reply, they have come out with a disarming plea which is to the effect that if at all there be any liability it shall be that of respondent No. 2-State. It seems that respondent No. 1 is at least aware of the aforesaid two judgments. More or less a similar question had arisen in Special Civil Application No. 731 of 1989 dealt with by Justice R. C. Mankad as he then was, on 2-8-1991. No. doubt, as rightly pointed out by learned A.G.P. Mr. Pujari, it was a matter of family pension but the question required to be considered in that case was, the status of the panchayat employees and whether Government can be held responsible for any such payment or not. Needless to say, referring to the aforesaid Supreme Court decision, the matter has been decided in favour of the petitioner of that case.