PATNA NAGAR NIGAM SEWA Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE amount, which was to be deposited in trust to take care of the retiral dues of the employees of the Patna Municipal Corporation, has not been deposited within the stipulated period. The issues raised in this petition are not fresh or of this year. The petition has been pending since 1998. Whether arrears of pay or retiral benefits, as time passes by for those who were seeking arrears of pay and retirement now are seeking arrears of pay and retirement benefits both. As time passes by the situation is getting more complicated and perhaps out of hand. At one stage a hope and commitment was given to the employees i.e. the sanction has been sought from the State government to take care of the arrears and it would be paid. Then the High Court was told that unless rules are framed, which will be simultaneous sanction also, the amount will follow. Whether sanction or whether acknowledgement of the rules by the State government, in so far as the employees are concerned, they continued to languish still waiting in hope that their arrears and now retiral benefits may yet be paid. It looks as if a hope is turning into a despair.

(2.) THE High Court has no answer for these employees in the face of unwillingness of the erstwhile managers of the superseded Patna Municipal Corporation who sat as Administrators and did not pay arrears of salary and retiral benefits. The Administrators ran this Corporation answerable to no one but the State government. Can the State government wriggle out of its responsibility. When the superseded self government institution was its eminent domain, so it is claimed, the administrators claim immunity from answerability. While the Patna Municipal Corporation under Administrators provided one more deputation post for the bureaucracy 'sbenefit and luxuries not excluded, such administrators and so called Chief Executive Officers took their pay and facilities and perks but the lowest level employees who worked under such officers went without pay and pensions.

(3.) THE workforce of an organization marches on its stomach. If the bureaucrats and civil servants are their managers then they have no moral right to draw their salary, perks and allowances until every man who works under them receives his salary and retirement benefits, just as these accrue to the bureaucrats themselves. The only difference is that the bureaucrat who conveniently shrugs off responsibility on payment of arrears of salary and retirement dues is a Class I officer and the lowest man in the organization is a Class IV employee.