- (1.) The petitioner seeks by means of a writ of mandamus a direction for awarding interest against the delayed disbursal of the retirement dues. The petitioner was appointed as Engineer and retired as an Assistant Executive Engineer on 30.06.2007. The petitioner's grievance is, he was paid his leave encashment in September 2009, his gratuity in October 2009, pension dues in October 2009 and the commutation of pension in November 2009. According to the petitioner, there was simply no justification for the delayed payment.
(2.) The justifications proffered by the respondents are that there had been charge-sheets against the petitioner issued during his service, one on 23.08.2006 and another on 27.10.2006. The respondents however are prepared to accept that the charges had been dropped without further action even before his retirement, on 27.06.2007. A show cause notice appears to have issued on 13.03.2007 but it did not culminate into issuance of any chargesheet but dropped on 31.12.2008. Yet another charge-sheet had been issued after his retirement in 2009 stating that in terms of audit objection, he was responsible for large amount running to several lakhs of rupees and the respondents had issued notices to the petitioner to come present to explain the queries raised by the audit on various dates, namely, on 16.05.2007, 30.06.2007, 10.06.2008 and 05.09.2008 and the petitioner had not come to answer the claims made by the respondents. Ultimately, it turned out that the audit objection could not sustained and the action was dropped. While the respondents admit that there had been a delay, they would however qualify it by saying that they were due to appropriate reasons.
(3.) If the charge-sheet had been established and if there was any charge-sheet which could be said to be lawfully instituted subsequent to the retirement, then it is possible to sustain the defence. The charge-sheets issued on 23.08.2006 and 27.10.2006 had been dropped even before his retirement. The charge-sheet issued in 2009 was per se impermissible, for, there is no provision anywhere under the relevant rules under which a charge-sheet could have been issued subsequent to his retirement. A show cause notice of the year 2007 cannot also be said to cause any impediment for payment of retiral dues, so long as there was no charge-sheet framed subsequent to the show cause notice before his retirement. None of the actions which the respondents had against the petitioner really afforded a ground for denying to the petitioner the retiral dues.;