URMILA DEVI Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS Letters Patent Appeal arises out of a writ petition, CWJC No, 4275 of 2000 [Reported in 2001(2) PLJR 204], filed by one Nawal Kishore Prasad Singh (hereinafter called the 'petitioner '). He died during the pendency of the case. After his death his widow Urmiia Devi and three sons got themselves substituted. They are appellants in this appeal. The writ petition was filed seeking direction to appoint petitioner 'sson Satyajit Kumar alias Sanjit Prasad Singh (appellant no. 2 herein) on compassionate ground, and for quashing an order by which the writ petitioner had been retired, according to him, prematurely. Vide order dated 22.6.2000 passed in the connected CWJC, he gave up the relief so far as alleged premature retirement was concerned. The said order runs as under :

(2.) THE dispute thus, it would appear, relates to the compassionate appointment of appellant no. 2. But as would appear from the facts stated hereinafter, the heart of the dispute is the controversy relating to the age of the writ petitioner i.e. Nawal Kishore Prasad Singh. The rules of the respondent Company, namely, Bharat Wagon & Engineering Limited Company of which the petitioner was an employee, as it then stood, provided for appointment of son of an employee seeking voluntary retirement five years prior to his due superannuation, in his place. And that is how dispute arose regarding the age of the petitioner. The claim having been rejected by the Company, the petitioner approached this Court in the concerned case.

(3.) THE further case of the petitioner is that at about the same time on 21.1.96 he Company made reference to the Bihar School Examination Board to verify the genuineness of the matriculation certificate produced by the petitioner showing his date of birth as 10.2.1941. On 23.6.96 the Assistant Secretary of the Board informed the Company that as per the records Nawal Kishore Prasad Singh son of Late Tarkeshwar Prasad Singh had passed the matriculation examination in 1959. in the third division securing 341 marks and his date of birth was 10.2.41. On 28.6.96 the petitioner filed a complaint being complaint case no. 266(C)/96, before the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Barh in which after enquiry under Section 202 Cr, P.C. cognizance was taken against the officers of the Company for offences under Sections 420, 466 and 120B IPC on 15.10.96, and summons were issued to them. The accused o fficials of the Company filed Cr. Misc. No. 23287/96 for quashing the said order of the Magistrate. By interim order dated 26.11.97 this Court directed the petitioner and his son to make fresh representation for compassionate appointment observing that if such representation is made the Company shall sympathetically consider the same and reconsider the earlier decision, if permissible under the Rules. In the light of the said order of this Court the petitioner made representation on 17.12.97 but no appointment was made till date. At this stage he approached this Court seeking directions as mentioned at the outset.