D.G.R. Patnaik, J. - (1.) Challenge in this writ application is against the order dated 27.09.2004 (Annexure-10) issued by the Respondent No. 5 whereby the petitioner's representation against the recovery of a sum of Rs. 92,169/- from his gratuity was rejected. A further prayer has been made for quashing the order dated 26.03.2003 vide Office Memo No. 1493 whereby an amount of Rs. 12,903/- has been recovered on the ground of delayed passing of Hindi Noting and Drafting Examination. The petitioner has also prayed for a direction upon Respondents to refund the entire amount recovered from the petitioner's salary and his retiral dues along with interest there on.
(2.) The case of the petitioner in brief is that he was appointed as an Accounts Assistant and joined the office of the Electrical Superintending Engineer, Ranchi on 17.02.1965. Upon completion of 10 years of service on the same post and pay scale, he was granted selection grade vide office order dated 12.09.1980 with effect from 01.07.1977. Subsequently vide office order dated 14.02.1984 he was promoted to the post of Accountant and joined the office on 15.02.1984. Though he was promoted to the post of Accountant, he did not get any upgradation on scale nor any additional monetary benefit by way of any enhancement in the scale of pay since he was already granted the selection grade prior to his promotion. The order of promotion was subsequently confirmed by the respondent Board vide its office order dated 22.02.1990 (Annexure-15). Since persons who did not get promotion even on completion of 20 years i.e. 10 years after grant of selection grade, and they were granted super selection grade and were paid salary at a higher scale than that of the petitioner and similarly situated several other persons, the Board on considering the anomaly, decided to give pay protection by granting the scale of super selection grade to the petitioner and similarly situated other persons and pursuant to such decision of the Board, as contained in the Office Order No. 5526 dated 30.10.1990, the petitioner and similarly situated persons like him were allowed the benefit of the super selection grade with effect from 01.08.1988 with the benefit of upgradation of pay scale by 12%. Pursuant to the recommendations of the 5th Pay Commission, the petitioner's pay scale was revised with effect from 01.01.1996. The statement regarding revision of pay scale was prepared by the competent authority in the prescribed Form 'B' which was duly vetted by the competent authority. The revised pay scale of the petitioner as fixed with effect from 01.01.1996 was on the basis of the corresponding scale which the petitioner used to draw after the grant of super selection grade with effect from 01.08.1988. Thereafter the petitioner retired from service on 30.04.2003. Since after his retirement his retiral benefits were not paid, he made repeated representations before the concerned authorities of the respondents and ultimately the amount of General Provident Fund was sanctioned and he was paid the same on 29.09.2003 but he was not paid the statutory interest for the delayed payment of the G.P.F. amount. Furthermore, the petitioner's pension was provisionally fixed on 26.05.2003 at 90%. Likewise, even after his retirement, the respondents had sanctioned the leave encashment payable to him but despite such order passed on 07.06.2003, the amount of leave encashment has not been released. The petitioner had also applied for commutation of 40% of his pension as per the provisions under service rules and though his application was duly processed but the concerned respondents did not sanction the payment. Likewise, the respondents did not sanction the gratuity of the petitioner even after lapse of several months of his retirement. With the aforesaid grievance, the petitioner filed a writ application before this court vide W.P.(S) No. 352 of 2004. The writ petitioner wad disposed by an order dated 22.01.2004 with a direction to the respondents legally payable to the petitioner and with a corresponding direction to the petitioner to vacate the respondent's quarter in his possession within the stipulated period. When the petitioner pointed out before this court about the inaction of the respondents in spite of the aforesaid order of this Court, a further order was passed by this Court on 30.04.2004 directing the respondents to make payments of the entire retrial dues to the petitioner. During the pendency of the interlocutory application, respondents sanctioned gratuity by their order dated 15.05.2004 but only after deducting a sum of Rs. 92,269/- on the ground that the said amount was given to the petitioner by way of excess payment and that the same was recoverable. The respondents had proceeded to re-fix the pay scale of the petitioner by deducting one increment. As a result of the reduction of increment, the pension and gratuity of the petitioner has been sanctioned at a lesser rate. When the case was listed for hearing on 12.07.2004, the respondents produced a cheque for a sum of Rs. 1,91,034/-. When the petitioner brought to the notice of this Court that the respondents have illegally deducted a sum of Rs. 92,169/-, this Court gave liberty to the petitioner to raise an objection by filing a protest petition before G.M, Ranchi (Respondent No. 5) who was directed to consider the representation and take a final decision in accordance with law.
(3.) After disposal of the writ application with the above observations made by this Court, the petitioner filed his representation stating his objections against the recovery of the aforesaid amount from his gratuity, before the Respondent No. 5. He had also objected to the reduction of his pay scale by one increment.;