S.J. Mukhopadhaya, J. - (1.) THE husband of petitioner late Govind Hembrom was in the services of Bihar State Electricity Board (B.S.E.B. for short) and died in harness on 2nd October, 1998. Thereafter though a sum of Rs. 1,46,579/ - was sanctioned by the competent authority, namely, General Manager -cum -Chief Engineer, Electric Supply Area, Bhagalpur vide letter dated 13th March, 2003 but it was not paid. The authorities allowed provisional family pension from August, 2002 but arrears on finalization of family pension and other dues were not paid. This apart, inspite of application made by the petitioner for compassionate appointment of her son, the respondents did not consider the case of the son of petitioner for compassionate appointment against class -IV post.
(2.) INSPITE of time allowed to respondents on 20th December, 2002, 29th January, 2003, no counter affidavit was filed. This Court vide order dated 4th March, 2003 allowed further three weeks' time on the request of the counsel for B.S.E.B. and Jharkhand State Electricity Board (J.S.E.B. for short) to file their respective counter affidavit and made it clear that if no counter affidavit is filed, they will be liable to pay a cost of Rs. 1,000/ - each in favour of petitioner. A counter affidavit has been filed on behalf of respondent Nos. 1 to 3 (J.S.E.B.) but no counter affidavit has been filed on behalf of B.S.E.B. In this background, the B.S.E.B. is liable to pay a cost of Rs. 1,000/ - (One thousand) in favour of petitioner as per Court's order dated 4th March, 2003.
(3.) ACCORDING to J.S.E.B., the age of the deceased was assessed between 60 -62 years by a Medical Board which submitted its report on 29th October, 1998 (vide Annexure -B) but the aforesaid submission cannot be accepted as it is not in dispute that the deceased employee, namely, Govind Hembrom died on 2nd October, 1998 and thereby there was no occasion for any Medical Board to assess the age of a dead person as on 29th October, 1998. Thus there being doubt relating to Annexure -B, the report of the Medical Board, this Court is not inclined to accept the suggestion made by the counsel for the J.S.E.B. that the employee deemed to have retired from service.;