KUSHAL KONWAR BARUAH Vs. STATE OF ASSAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this writ petition, the petitioner is aggrieved by the refusal of the respondent authorities to pay his salary due to him from June, 1996 to 16th August, 2004 and is now seeking the intervention of this Court for payment of these back wages to him.

(2.) The case of the petitioner is that he was initially appointed as Music Teacher of Tangla Girls' High School on 17.4.1993 in the pay scale of Rs.1375-3375/- for a period of three months against a sanctioned post. The post of Music Teacher was retained till 28.2.2003 while his service was extended from time to time in the meantime, but payment of his salary was stopped from June, 1996. When his service was not regularised, he approached this Court in WP(C) No. 6129 of 2003 for regularization of his service for payment of his salaries from June, 1996 as well as his monthly salary. This Court while issuing rule on 8.8.2003 passed an interim order directing the respondent authorities to pay his monthly salary to the petitioner on monthly basis. The interim order was ultimately complied with by the respondent authorities on the pain of facing punishment for contempt of this Court: the service of the petitioner was regularised and was allowed to draw his monthly salary with effect from 16.8.2004 as a Music Teacher vide the order dated 14.2.2007.

(3.) It would appear that on 26.9.2007, the Deputy Secretary to the Government of Assam in the Education (Secondary) Department wrote to the Director of Education, BTC, Kokrajhar (respondent 5) informing him that as the petitioner had been working as Music Teacher of Tangla Girls' High School, Udalgiri had fallen under the jurisdiction of Inspector of Schools, Udalgiri Circle under BTC (respondent 6), the budget for the salaries of teachers stood transferred to the BTC authority, that the salary arrears of the petitioner prior to December, 2007 was to be released from the BTC budget and requested the BTC authority to release the salary arrears of the petitioner from the BTC budget and intimate the same to the Government of Assam. The respondent No. 6 thereafter issued the letter dated 11.10.2007 addressed to the Headmaster of the school to prepare the bills for the petitioner with effect from 16.8.2004. The bill in respect of the salary arrears of the petitioner so prepared by the Headmaster of the school for the period commencing from 16.8.2004 to 28.2.2006 and from 1.3.2006 to 30.11.2006 amounting to Rs. 1,84,571/- was submitted to the respondent No. 5 for payment. In the meantime, the writ petition filed by the petitioner i.e. WP(C) No. 6129/03 was dismissed on 1.4.2008 in default of prosecution. Though the petitioner has now been allowed to draw his monthly regular salary with effect from 1.12.2006, he has not been paid his salary even for the period from 16.8.2004 to 30.11.2006 notwithstanding the regularization of his service with effect from 16.8.2004. At this stage, it may be noted that the Secretary to the Government of Assam, Education Department had issued the order dated 16.8.2004 with reference to the order dated 6.6.2003 passed by this Court in WP(C) No. 6129/03 declaring that in view of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed between the Government of India and Government of Assam, the Government could not create any new post for payment of salary with retrospective effect. This order was never challenged by the petitioner during the pendency of WP(C) No. 6129 of 2003 by amending the said writ petition. In the meantime, the writ petition, which was restored to file on the application of the petitioner on 10.6.2008 was again dismissed by this Court on 2.3.2010 in default of prosecution.