AROTI DAS Vs. STATE OF ASSAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The writ petitioner, who is the widow of one Late Gunindra Nath Das, has filed the instant writ application seeking intervention of this Court in the matter of payment of the pensionary dues and other retirement benefits of her deceased husband.

(2.) The facts on which the writ petition has been structured may be briefly stated as hereunder: The husband of the petitioner was appointed as a temporary Mechanical Overseer in the Public Works Department of the Government of Assam in the year 1957. After rendering nearly two decades of service, the husband of the petitioner passed away while in service on 1.12.78. At that point of time he was working as a Sub-Engineer (Mech) in the Baithalangso Division of the State P.W.D. It may be noticed at this stage that the deceased husband of the writ petitioner took over charge as Sub-Engineer in the Baithalangso Division sometime in the month of May, 1977 on transfer. After the death of the petitioner's husband, the writ petitioner submitted a requisite application seeking payment of retirement benefit of her deceased husband before the concerned authority and such applications were followed by numerous reminders and representations. In the year 1986, an order of provisional pension was passed in favour of the writ petitioner but the same was not followed by due payments. While the petitioner was pursuing her claim as aforesaid, several correspondence were exchanged by and between the authorities of the State, which correspondences would go to show that there was a complaint against the husband of the writ petitioner that at the time of handing over charge at Tezpur, on transfer to Baithalangso, Division, there was a shortage of store materials to the extent of Rs.1,53,482.00. The authority did not draw up any proceeding against the writ petitioner during his life time and even after his death, assuming such a proceeding could not have been drawn up, no proceeding was drawn up against his legal heirs also. However, some enquiries were conducted in respect of the shortage of store materials by the authorities of the P.W.D. from time to time and in the said enquiries some blame was attributed to the deceased husband of the writ petitioner though the opinion taken by the authorities was that in the absence of any formal proceeding being drawn up in the matter, the amount of pension and other retirement benefits of the deceased husband of the writ petitioner should be released.

(3.) As, inspite of several orders passed by the authority, no payments were forthcoming, the instant writ proceeding had been instituted wherein an interim order dated 4.5.2000 was passed by this Court directing payment of arrear and current pension on provisional basis in favour of the writ petitioner. As the said interim directions were not complied with, Contempt Case No.99/2000 was filed before this Court and during the pendency of the contempt proceeding, a pension payment order had been issued in favour of the writ petitioner declaring the amount of monthly pension she would be entitled to for the different periods as mentioned in the pension payment order. Curiously, the aforesaid pension payment order is undated and in the said order there is a direction that an amount of Rs.1,09,982.23 should be deducted from the total entitlement of the writ petitioner, on account of the shortage of the store materials which had allegedly occurred during the life time of the husband of the writ petitioner. The aforesaid undated pension payment order and the contemplated action of deduction have been brought on record by the petitioner by filing an additional affidavit so as to enable the writ petitioner to broaden the challenge initially made in this writ petition.