SEWA SINGH Vs. STATE OF HARYANA AND OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By virtue of instant petition preferred under Articles 226/227 of the Constitution of India, petitioner has sought the issuance of writ in the nature of mandamus directing the respondents to hold and count the service rendered by him in the Government School of State of Arunachal Pradesh from August 27, 1978 to August 15, 1983 on regular sanctioned post for the purposes of qualifying service towards the pensionary benefits under the instructions and Punjab Civil Services Rules, Vol-II (for short 'Rules') as adopted by State of Haryana along with all consequential benefits.

(2.) At the very outset of arguments, the question arose that the petitioner stood retired on November 30, 2006 on attaining the age of superannuation and the grouse with regard to the non-counting of service earlier rendered by him in the Department of Education, Arunachal Pradesh for the period referred to above has been ventilated for the first time through the instant petition in the month of August 2017 i.e. after more than a decade of his retirement and after about 2' decades from the date of his joining the service in the State of Haryana. As such apparently, there is a delay and laches on the part of petitioner in approaching the Court. However, learned counsel for the petitioner submits that there is no limitation for filing a writ petition provided under Law. However, the delay in approaching this Court would not affect the consequential claim for arrears, which can be ordered to be limited to 38 months prior to the filing of writ petition, under the settled proposition of law. To buttress this contentions, learned counsel for the petitioner has relied upon a Full Bench judgment passed by this Court in the case of Saroj Kumari v. State of Punjab; 1998 (3) SCT 664. Learned counsel for the petitioner also relies upon the judgments of Hon'ble Apex Court rendered in the cases of M.R. Gupta v. Union of India and others;1996 (1) SCT 8; Union of India v. Keshar Singh;2007 (2) SCT 754, Asger Ibrahim Amin v. Life Insurance Corporation of India; 2015 (4) SCT 695 and Union of India & others v. Manpal; 2015 (4) SCT 63.

(3.) Beside the afore-said judgments, in the case of Shiv Dass v. Union of India; 2007 (2) SCT 72; the Hon'ble Apex Court has held as under; "The High Court does not ordinarily permit a belated resort to the extraordinary remedy because it is likely to cause confusion and public inconvenience and bring in its train new injustices, and if writ jurisdiction is exercised after unreasonable delay, it may have the effect of inflicting not only hardship and inconvenience but also injustice on third parties. It was pointed out that when writ jurisdiction is invoked, unexplained delay coupled with the creation of third party rights in the meantime is an important factor which also weighs with the High Court in deciding whether or not to exercise such jurisdiction. In the case of pension the cause of action actually continues from month to month. That, however, cannot be a ground to overlook delay in filing the petition. If petition is filed beyond a reasonable period say three years normally the Court would reject the same or restrict the relief which could be granted to a reasonable period of about three years."