TUKARAM AYAJI MAIND Vs. MUNICIPAL COUNCIL MEHEKAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) RULE. Rule is made returnable forthwith. Heard finally with the consent of the parties.

(2.) THE petitioners are the retired employees of the respondent No. 1. They are eligible and entitled to get retirement benefits including regular pension. It appears that they have no other source of income for their livelihood. They have knocked the doors of this Court as back as on 10-7-2001, almost two years back, under Article 226 of the Constitution of India praying for a direction or an appropriate writ to the respondent No. 1 for payment of their retirement benefits and the regular payment of pension. Since the filing of the petition, they are hoping for some relief from this Court as they could not do anything else.

(3.) THE respondent No. 1 appeared on receipt of the notice from this Court and admitted the liability to pay to the petitioners and all other retired employees for payment of their retirement benefits including the regular pension. They have been fair enough to admit their liability towards their past employees. They have further placed before this Court their inability to raise fund to meet the municipal expenses on two fronts, namely (i) for payment of retirement benefits of the past employees; and (ii) the regular wages payable to the employees who are presently in the employment and the civic amenities to the citizens who are the tax payers and who expect basic civic amenities and essential services from the Municipal Council. The principal difficulty expressed by respondent No. 1 is that on account of abolition of octroi, the income or the receipt side of the Municipal Council has eroded to a great extent and that it has become very difficult for them to meet the two ends of income and expenditure. They have expressed their willingness to disburse the amounts received by them in terms of the grants given by the respondent No. 2-the State Government towards the payment of retirement benefits as also the payment of regular wage bills of the employees. Finding the difficulty expressed by the Municipal Council as genuine, we had issued notice to the respondent No. 2 State Government to explain the position and also to get an assurance from the State Government as to when the grants payable to the Municipal Council would be released.