SUKHDEO RAI Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) HEARD the parties.

(2.) PETITIONERS of all these six writ petitions which have been heard together at the stage of admission are retired employees of Bihar State Construction Corporation Limited Patna. In one of the writ petitions C.W.J.C. No. 4416 of 2001 the petitioner claims to be wife of an employee of the same corporation who died in harness. The petitioners have waited for dues of retiral benefits as well as certain dues of saJary or for dues of death -cum -retiral benefits for two years or more but the Corporation has expressed its inability to pay even the admitted dues on account of financial hardship.

(3.) ON behalf of petitioners it was submitted that the respondent Corporation admittedly being an instrumentality of the State cannot act arbitrarily and cannot deny the petitioners of their lawful dues on account of paucity of funds. It must sell of its assests or borrow from financial institutions of the State Government and pay the admitted dues within a reasonable time. On the other hand, on behalf of respondent Corporation as well as State reliance has been placed upon a Full Bench judgment of this Court in the case of Manikant Pathak and others V/s. The State of Bihar, reported in 1997 (1) PLJR 664. The State has relied upon the said judgment to submit that the employees of the Corporation cannot be treated as employees of the State and no direction can be issued to the State for payment of salary to the employees of the Corporation or the retiral benefits to its retired or dead employees. As noticed above the stand of the Corporation appears to be a plea of inability due to financial hardship.