Patna High Court: The Division Bench comprising of A. P. Sahi, CJ and Anjana Mishra, J. allowed a civil writ petition seeking direction for release of gratuity to an employee who was accused of an economic offence.
Petitioner was accused of acquiring of assets disproportionate to his income. In a departmental proceeding initiated against him, a final order was passed whereby it was ordered that ten per cent of his pension amount shall be permanently deducted and he would be paid only subsistence allowance during the period of suspension. Even after three and a half years from lodging of the criminal case, neither any sanction was accorded by the department against him nor was any chargesheet submitted by the prosecution – Economic Offence Unit. Thus, the petitioner filed an instant petition seeking the release of full amount of gratuity payable to him and a direction for release of the full amount due to him by way of unutilized leave.
The Court noted that despite the fact that charges of disproportionate income were not established against the petitioner in the departmental enquiry, ten percent of his pension was withheld as per Bihar Pension Rules, 1950. It was opined that no order of punishment had been imposed in relation to gratuity, and therefore withholding of gratuity had no rationale. Relying on Rule 43(b) of the Pension Rules and Full Bench judgment of the Patna High Court in Arvind Kumar Singh v. State of Bihar, 2018 SCC OnLine Pat 749, the present Court directed the amount of gratuity payable to the petitioner to be released forthwith along with interest on the same from the date that amount became payable till the date of payment. [Lakshmi Kant Patel v. State of Bihar, 2018 SCC OnLine Pat 2250, decided on 17-12-2018]
