Central Administrative Tribunal - Delhi
Karamvir Singh vs Employees State Insurance Corporation on 23 December, 2024
1
Item No. 20/ C-3
C
O.A. No. 2876/2021
Central Administrative Tribunal
Principal Bench: New Delhi
O.A. No. 2876/2021
/2021
This day of 23rd December of 2024
Hon'ble Mr. Manish Garg, Member (J)
1. Karamvir Singh, Age 62 years, Group "C" S/o Late Shri
Maha Singh H.NO. T-510,
T 510, Baljeet Nagar Hill Marg, New
Delhi 110008
2. Sanjeev Kumar Age 50 years, Group "C" S/o Late Shri
Surender Pal, R/o D-54C,
D Sitapuri--I, New Delhi 110045
3. Parveen Kumar Age 57 years, Group "C" S/o Late Shyam
Lal R/o B-29,
B 29, Ramnagar, Omvihar, Uttam Nagar, New Delhi.
4. Ms. Asha
Asha Rani, Age 50 years, Group "C" W/o Shri
Lokmani R/o E-52,
E 52, Korsi Nagar Nilothi, Najafgarh, Delhi
110041
5. Gouri Shankar Age 41 years, Group "C" S/o Late Shri
Kishan Singh R/o A-74,
A 74, Gali No. 2, Khera Gadi Extension,
Kehra Kala, Delhi-110082
Delhi
Applicants
(By Advocates:
Advocate Mr. Yogesh Kumar Mahur with Mr. Harkesh
Parahar and Ms. Anchal)
Anchal
V/s
1. Union of India through its Secretary Ministry of Labour
& Employment, Shram Shakti Bhawan, New Delhi.
2. Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) (Through
its Director General)
Panchdeep Bhawan, CIG Marg.
New Delhi 110002
3. Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) (Through
its Regional Director) Panchdeep Bhawan, CIG Marg, New
Delhi 110002
2
Item No. 20/ C-3
C
O.A. No. 2876/2021
4. Director, Directorate (Medical) Delhi, ESI Scheme
Dispensary Complex,
Complex, Tilak Vihar New Delhi 110018
5. Director Directorate (Medical) Delhi, M/o Labour &
Employment, 5th and 6th Floor, Admn Block ESIC
Complex, Basiadarapur New Delhi 110015
...Respondent
(By Advocate: Mr. Amit Chawla)
3
Item No. 20/ C-3
C
O.A. No. 2876/2021
ORDER (ORAL)
In the instant OA, the learned counsel for the applicants are seeking the following reliefs:-
reliefs:
"i)
i) Quash and set aside the impugned Orders passed by the Respondent vide which the Applicants are being subjected to Recovery of the Entire LTC amount with Inter Interest. The details of the impugned Order in respect of applicant No.1 to applicant No. 5 is as follows:-
follows:
a) LTC Cancellation cum Recovery Order No. 2019/1BK Dtd.
06.01.2020 & Order No. 111-A/22/15(4)/LTC/2016 111 A/22/15(4)/LTC/2016-17/P.F.2/Cash branch 558 dated 24.12.2019 issued to Applicant No.1 Annexed as Annexure A-1 A Colly.
b) LTC Cancellation cum Recovery Order No. 111 111- A/44/24/1/2016 17/LTC/Cash Branch 597 dated 06.1.2020 & 111 A/44/24/1/2016- 111- A- 22/15(3)LTC/2015-16 22/15(3)LTC/2015 16 cash branch 308 dated 27.08.2019 issued to Applicant No.2 is Annexed as Annexure Annexure A A-2 Colly.
c) LTC Cancellation cum Recovery Order No F.No. 111 111-A-22- /15(3)/LTC/2015 16 Cash Branch 27.08.2019 and Order No 111 /15(3)/LTC/2015-16 111- A- 22/44/1/2016-1/LTC/PF-2/Cash 22/44/1/2016 2/Cash Brach 404 Dated 24.10.2019 issued to applicant No.3 is annexed as Annexure A A-3 Colly.
d) LTC Cancellation cum Recovery Order No. 111 111-A- 22/44/1/2016 1/LTC/PF-22 Cash Brach 160 dtd 17.07.2019 issued 22/44/1/2016- to applicant No.4 is annexed as Annexure A-
A-4.
e) LTC Cancellation cum Recovery Order No. 111 111-A- 22/15(3)/LTC/2015 2016/PF/ Cash Brach174 dtd. 01.0 22/15(3)/LTC/2015-2016/PF/ 01.08.2019 & Order No. 111-A-22/15(3)/LTC/2015-2016/Cash 111 2016/Cash (M) 571 dtd.
04.12.2019 issued to applicant No.5 is annexed as Annexure AA-5 Colly.
ii) Direct the Respondents to re-imburse re imburse the recovery already done with regards to Applicant No. 3 and Applicant No.5 w with interest @24% and also pay the remaining LTC amounts to the Applicant no 1 to Applicant no 5 with interest.
iii) Direct the Respondents not to recover any interest part from the Applicant No. 1, 2 and 4.
iv) Cost of the proceedings may also be awarded to applicants;
v) Any other relief which this Hon'ble Tribunal may also be passed in favour of the applicants."
4Item No. 20/ C-3 C O.A. No. 2876/2021
2. Learned counsel for the applicants applicant relies upon the deciding rendered by the Hon'ble High Court of Delhi Writ Petition No. 3106/2019 titled Joginder and Ors. Vs. Govt. of NCT of Delhi and Ors., and the relevant paragraphs of the same read as under:
under:-
"14. We are of the considered view that the circular is meant to be obeyed and followed scrupulously and that there was no reason for the officers to not have complied with the terms of the circular. While the initial stand of Mr. Chhibber that since the petitioners had already travelled and paid the amount to their travel agents, the full amounts should be reimbursed to them is without any force; in our view, interests of justice would be served if the respondents reimburse to the petitioners their claims towards LTC as per the amounts payable according to the price of air-tickets air tickets charged by authorized travel agents; and recover/adjust/deduct from the petitioners the amounts in excess recover/adjust/deduct of such price, that may have been paid to the petitioners.
15. Accordingly, we modify the order of the Tribunal to the extent that the respondents would be entitled to recover the 'difference' of the airfare as per the price offered/charged by authorized agents and the airfare paid to the petitioners."
3. He further relies upon the decision rendered in OA No. 947/2018, decided by the coordinate Bench of this Tribunal in the matter of Raj Kumar Nirala and Ors. Vs. The Director, National Institute of Tuberculosis & Respiratory Diseases, and Ors., wherein in an identical situation, this Bench partly allowed the OA in terms of the holding, by observing as under:-
under:
"18. It is also obvious that the applicants are not entitled to the entire amount as claimed by and reimbursed to them but only to the extent that the amount is equivalent to the fare of Air India Tickets for these journeys if the same had been purchased from Air India. The respondents are, therefore, direc directed to work out the amount as per the fares if the tickets had been purchased from Air India directly and reimburse to the applicant only that amount. The balance amount, over and above that if already paid shall however be reimbursed by the applicant or rrecovered from their 5 Item No. 20/ C-3 C O.A. No. 2876/2021 salaries by the respondents. Reimbursement would, thus, be the amount payable to the applicant had she/he purchased the tickets directly from Air India or authorised agent. Other entitled amount paid towards LTC and earned leave etc. sh shall not be recovered from the applicants.
19. The impugned orders are quashed and set aside. The OA is partly allowed with the above directives. There shall be no order to costs."
4. On the same analogy, learned counsel for the applicant submits that these se are Group 'C' employees and not working as Directors. The verification could have been done by the respondents, and the issue is merely the difference in air fare, as per the price afforded and charged by the authorized agent, and the fare that should hhave been paid. In terms of the decision relied upon by him, he also refers to various OMs which contemplate that there should be no denial of the differential fare.
It is further highlighted that in the present matter, the bookings were directly made through through SpiceJet, and the only issue is the adjustment of the difference in fare.
5. Opposing the grant of relief, learned counsel for the respondents highlights that:-
that:
"on scrutiny of documents, it has been observed that the Applicants herein have not purchased tickets from the actual website of Spicejet but from Spicevacations.com, which offers holiday packages and not just Air Tickets for the purpose of availing LTC. Hence, 10% was not paid to them as their claims were rejected by the Competent Author Authority. The applicants submitted reply that the bookings of tickets were done from Spicejet, which is wrong and incorrect as Spicevacations.com is entirely different in as much as it offers full holiday packages and not just the flight tickets.
Spicevacationss cannot be considered an authorized airlines as Spicevacation Spicejet is an authorized airlines and all the airplanes run bearing the name Spicejet. Also, if closely look at the Spicevacations website; we can see that it offers only four options that are Hotels, 6 Item No. 20/ C-3 C O.A. No. 2876/2021 Hotels+Flights, s+Flights, Packages and SLF. Clearly, as per LTC guidelines, an employee is only paid for the fare of air ticket (which should be cheapest fare and shortest route). So only SLF qualifies as option, comparison of the fares of SLF in Spicevacations and Spicejet Spicejet website is given below:
below:-
S.No. Source and Rates at Rates at
Destination Spicejet Spicevacations
Website Website
1 Delhi to Port Blair 18,696/- 50,880/-
and back (25-28 Feb
2022)
2 Delhi to Leh and back 5,079/- 34,435/-
(20-24 March 2022)
3 Delhi to Bagdogra 12,138/- 26,314/-
and back (28 Feb-04
March 2022)
It is further submitted that the particulars of the ee-mail received from Spicejet are as follows:-
follows:
S.No. Name Date of Reason for
Rejection E
E- rejection
mail
1 Karamvir Singh 26.11.2019 As per the E-mail
received from
spicejet, it was
found that the
tickets were
booked from Spice
Vacations.com and
not spicejet.com.
2 Sanjeev Kumar 13.06.2019 As per the E-mail
received from
spicejet, it was
found that the
tickets were
booked from Spice
Vacations.com and
not spicejet.com.
3 Parveen Kumar 13.06.2019 As per the E-mail
received from
spicejet, it was
found that the
tickets were
booked from Spice
Vacations.com and
not spicejet.com.
4 Ms. Asha Rani 13.06.2019 As per the E-mail
received from
spicejet, it was
found that the
7
Item No. 20/ C-3
C
O.A. No. 2876/2021
tickets were
booked from Spice
Vacations.com and
not spicejet.com.
5 Gouri Shankar 13.06.2019 As per the E-mail
received from
spicejet, it was
found that the
tickets were
booked from Spice
Vacations.com and
not spicejet.com.
6. He relies upon the OM dated 29.07.2013, emphasizing that Clause 2 of the OM clearly states that booking of tickets for LTC through any private agent or agent's websites, such as Yatra, Makemytrip, etc., is strictly prohibited. As such, the admissibility of LTC claims on journeys performed on tickets procured through private agents/websites cannot be acceded to.
7. Having heard the learned counsel for the parties and reviewed the records of the case, the Tribunal observes that the OM dated 29 29.07.2013 clearly spells out a prohibition on booking tickets through private agents or websites like Yatra, Makemytrip, etc. However, in the present case, the tickets were booked directly through the official website of the airline, and no third-party third or private rivate agency was involved. This fact could have been verified by the respondents themselves. Therefore, the Tribunal is of the considered view that the OM dated 29.07.2013 cannot be strictly applied to the facts and circumstances of the present case.
8. The learned counsel for the respondents has strongly relied upon the pending consideration in WP No. 4928/2023 titled ESIC and Anr.8
Item No. 20/ C-3 C O.A. No. 2876/2021 Vs. Dr. Sanjay Prasad and Ors., Ors. where a stay was accorded on 19.04.2023. Reference is also drawn to the decision rendered in WP (C) No. 6070/2023, ESIC and Anr. Vs. Ajay Kumar and Ors., which was a subsequent decision where the Bench stayed the operation of the order passed on 19.04.2023. The Hon'ble High Court observed as under:
under:-
"10. In the case in hand, the respondents are w working as Para Medics which is a Group-C Group C post. It is not the case of the petitioners herein that the respondents have made a claim for LTC of a higher amount than they would have paid to the authorised travel agent. So in that sense, by booking from a By:JYOTIRMOY By:JYOTIRMOY GHOSH W.P.(C) 6070/2023 Page 5 2023:DHC:3185 DB website, the respondents have made a claim of 2023:DHC:3185-DB equivalent amount which they would have made, had they booked their tickets from authorised agents. In that view of the matter, the order of the Tribunal need no interference except in the eventuality, the petitioners / Corporation is of the view that the claim of the respondents towards LTC is not as per the amount payable according to the price of air tickets that would have been charged by the authorise authorised travel agent, recover / adjust / deduct from the respondents the amount excess of such price. To that extent, the order of the Tribunal stands modified. This exercise shall be carried out within a period of four weeks from today and the balance amount of LTC, in the eventuality payable, be paid to the respondents within a period of four weeks thereafter."
9. We observe that the present case is squarely covered by the decision rendered in Ajay Kumar (supra), directing the respondents to adjudicate upon the the claim of the applicant. This may not be in accordance with the amount payable based on the price of the air ticket that could have been charged by an authorized travel agent, but the respondents must recover, adjust, and deduct from the applicant the excess ess amount paid for such tickets. The respondents shall take corrective measures and pass an appropriate order after making the necessary deductions and adjustments, comparing the price as prevalent directly from the airline. This exercise will be complete completed within eight 9 Item No. 20/ C-3 C O.A. No. 2876/2021 weeks from the date of receipt of the certified copy of this order, and the balance amount of LTC, if any, shall be refunded or adjusted accordingly. The applicant shall also be entitled to all consequential benefits.
10. In view of the above, above, the present OA stands disposed of. All pending applications are disposed of. No order as to costs.
(Manish Garg) Member (J) /arti/