MOSOMAT RABIYA KHATOON Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) 1. The husband of the petitioner retired from the services of the Government on 30th April. 1991. He filed a writ petition, which was registered as CWJC No. 2218 of 2001, seeking a mandamus of this Court directing the respondents in the said writ petition to release an pay to him his lawful retiral dues and claims. At that stage it was abated by the respondents in the writ petition that the Service Book of the husband of the petitioner is not available and that his Last Pay Certificate is also not traceable. The Court directed reconstruction of the Service Book and at the same time directed payment of all retiral dues due and payable to the husband of the petitioner. After the said order was passed but before any step was taken to implement the directions contained in the said order, the husband of the petitioner died. The husband of the petitioner was a Junior Engineer in the Minor Irrigation Department of the Government of Bihar. Even thereafter the retiral dues payable to the husband of the petitioner were not released and paid to the petitioner and hence she was constrained to file the present writ petition.

(2.) IN the counter affidavit it was held out that the matter pertaining to the services rendered by the husband of the petitioner has been gone in and it transpired that the husband of the petitioner has taken advances from the State but did not return or accounted for the same and also did not account for the materials entrusted by the State to him aggregating to total sum of Rs. 8.87 lacs and odd. It was then stated that the petitioner on account of retiral dues is entitled to roughly about Rs. 3.44 lace, and accordingly after appropriation of Rs. 3.44 lacs, the petitioner is required to refund Rs. 3.82 lacs to the State.

(3.) THERE being nothing on record to suggest that the husband of the petitioner had taken any other advance apart from the sum of Rs. 16,852/-, on record, there is nothing to suggest that any other money taken by the husband of the petitioner remains unaccounted for. Though several affidavits have been filed and despite specific opportunities given for bringing on records materials to suggest that the husband of the petitioner retained in his custody any material belonging to the State and did not return the same, the State has failed to bring on record* even one single scrap of document. As such the claim that the husband of the petitioner was required to return anything to the State on account of materials kept by him under his custody and not accounted for is not sustainable. On the basis of such mere averment, the State cannot ask for adjustment of otherwise lawful dues of the husband of the petitioner.