STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: In a Latent Patents Appeal (LPA) filed by State of J and K seeking setting-aside the judgment of Writ Court whereby it has quashed the premature retirement of Satish Khajuria then Chief Khilafwarzi Officer, the Division Bench of State High Court comprising Chief Justice N Paul Vasanthakumar and Justice Tashi Rabstan dismissed the appeal filed by the State and upheld the judgment of Writ Court.
After hearing both sides, the Division Bench observed that only reason to justify the compulsory retirement argued by the Senior AAG was that the writ petitioner was arrayed as accused person in three FIRs and some other allegations were also under probe, therefore, the Government thought it fit to weed out such a corrupt person. When this Court put a specific question as to whether in any of the probes any adverse finding is rendered or in the FIRs registered whether anything was found against the writ petitioner during investigation, the senior AAG fairly submitted that up to this date nothing was found against the writ petitioner. In such circumstances mere registration of FIR or alleged probe of certain alleged irregularities cannot be a ground to retire a person compulsorily when his APR entries are excellent/outstanding and assessment of integrity as “beyond doubt”, and “nothing adverse was noticed”. In the counter affidavit filed before the Writ Court the appellants in LPASW No. 122/2016 tried to justify the order of compulsory retirement on the ground that the writ petitioner does not enjoy good reputation in the public due to his consistent conduct over a period of time. The Committee came to the conclusion that the writ petitioner is generally known to have a bad reputation and has indulged in wrong doings while performing his duties. The Committee, therefore, recommended for premature retirement of the petitioner.
The Division Bench further observed that petitioner filed LPA as against the denial of 70% of back wages is concerned, the writ petitioner was prematurely retired at the age of 58 years i.e. from 1st July 2015 by giving three months full pay in lieu of notice and he having been prevented from discharging his duties due to the order of premature retirement dated 30th June 2015 and the same having been found erroneous, the writ petitioner is entitled to get full salary for the period during which he was not allowed to work.
DB further observed that be noted at this juncture that writ petitioner will otherwise get 50% of his salary as pension from 1st November 2015 and the remaining amount of 50% only the writ petitioner will be getting consequent to quashing the order of premature retirement. Thus the order of the Writ Court, restricting his salary to 30% upto the date of his reinstatement cannot be sustained and the said portion of the order is set aside. Since the writ petitioner has already reached the age of superannuation on 31st July 2016, the salary payable from 1st November 2015 to 31st July 2016 shall be paid to the writ petitioner after adjusting the pension amount if any already paid. The aforesaid period of service up to 31st July 2016 shall be treated as regular service for all purposes and the pension, if any sanctioned, shall also be re-fixed with effect from 1st August 2016 within a period of eight weeks.
