MIRA MAJUMDAR Vs. SUBAL CHANDRA ROY & ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Over the last three or four years, retired employees of the State Transport Corporations have been constrained to approach this court with complaints that their retiral dues had not been cleared within reasonable time.

(2.) In course of time, a uniform order came to be passed in almost all matters, providing for the relevant Corporation to calculate the amount and forward the same to the State for the State to release adequate funds to the Corporations so that the payments due could be released to the retired employees. Such orders were passed on the submission of the State Transport Corporations that they did not have the requisite funds or profits or pay off their retired employees. The uniform orders provided for a time limit within which the Managing Director of the relevant Corporation had to seek funds from the State and a further period of time within which the funds had to be released to the Corporations and a third period within which the Corporation had to pay to the complaining retired employees.

(3.) Several hundreds of contempt petitions have been filed by the beneficiaries of the orders passed by this court. It was towards the beginning of this year that the State attempted to introduce a scheme under which budgetary allotment was to be made for payment of the dues of the retired employees of the Corporations. Other measures have also been taken to streamline the Corporations or merge them for better efficiency.