NAREN TALUKDAR Vs. PUBLICATION BOARD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) All the aforesaid five writ appeals are arising out of a common Judgment passed by a learned Single Judge, dismissing five writ petitions, upholding their compulsory retirement from service. Being aggrieved by the impugned Judgment of the learned Single Judge dated 25.06.2008, passed in WP(C) No. 5914 of 2004, 4750 of 2004, 2610 of 2005, 2616 of 2005, 3027 of 2005 the writ petitioners are challenging the said Judgment in these appeals.

(2.) We have heard Sri A C Borbora, learned Senior Counsel for the appellants as well as Sri S N Sarma, learned Senior Counsel for the Publication Board, Assam, and Sri A K Phookan, learned Advocate General for the State. We have also gone through the impugned Judgment and the pleadings of both the parties. Learned counsel for the Board also produced the relevant files and Resolution registers, as per our order, and those have also been perused.

(3.) Facts necessary for disposal of the writ appeals are that the Publication Board, Assam, had 53 (fifty-three) employees on its roll. It came into existence in the year 1958, inter alia, to extend its services for the purpose of publication of historical manuscripts, publishing literatures in different languages, compiling and publishing Anglo-Assamese dictionary, historical books etc. Due to various factors the Publication Board turned to be a non-profitable and the situation came to such a pass that it could not pay regular salaries of the employees for 20 (twenty) months and it also could not contribute Provident Fund subscriptions and LIC premiums of the employees nearly for 6 (six) years. To overcome the financial crunch it approached the Government of Assam, who agreed to provide necessary fund to introduce Voluntary Retirement Scheme ( VRS" in short). On receipt of requisite fund the Board decided to prune the employees strength to 15 (fifteen). As per its Resolution dated 23.2.2004 the Board took a policy decision to introduce VRS Scheme. In the next meeting held on 8.5.2000 the Board approved both the VRS as well as compulsory retirement of its employees and authorized the Executive Committee to take appropriate action and advise the Board in this regard under Resolution Nos. 3.01 and 3.02.