Rajasthan High Court - Jaipur
Krishan Lal Chadha vs Union Of India (Uoi) And Ors. on 12 December, 2002
Equivalent citations: 2008(2)SLJ49(RAJ)
Author: Prakash Tatia
Bench: Prakash Tatia
ORDER
1. Heard learned Counsel.
2. Through this petition, the petitioner has sought a direction for declaration of Rules 24 and 41(1) of Central Civil Service (Pension) Rules, 1972 as irrational, ultra vires, illegal, irrelevant, contrary and without any nexus to other pension rules; that the orders Annexures 1 and 4 be quashed and set aside; and the respondents be directed to pay to the petitioner all the pensionary benefits for the period for which his service was satisfactory. Not only that, the petitioner has also claimed interest at the rate of 12% per annum on the sums due from the date of the same fell due to the date of actual payment.
3. The facts of the case, as have been narrated by the learned Counsel for the petitioner, depict illustrious litigious perseverance of the petitioner. Learned Counsel for the petitioner has submitted that the petitioner herein, who was working as Senior Store Superintendent in the Indian Air Force, was subjected to an enquiry and on the basis of the findings recorded with regard to the proved misconduct in the enquiry he was dismissed from the service by order dated 15th December, 1975. This order dated 18.12.1975 was subjected to an appeal, which was rejected by the Appellate Authority on 1.4.1977. The petitioner chose to prefer Writ Petition No. 623/1978 which was decided on 4th October, 1985 with a direction that the Appellate Authority may afford a personal hearing to the petitioner before passing the final orders. The Appellate Authority again passed the order against the petitioner on 26th February, 1986. This order dated 26th February, 1986 was subjected to challenge by pay of Original Application before the Central Administrative Tribunal and the Central Administrative Tribunal again passed an order for affording a personal hearing to the petitioner on 8th June, 1989. In pursuance of this order passed by CAT on 8th June, 1989, personal hearing was again afforded to the petitioner on 28.8.1989 and the appeal was rejected on 9th September, 1989. The petitioner again filed an Original Application before the Central Administrative Tribunal in January, 1990 which was rejected on 19.11.1993. The petitioner then approached the Supreme Court by way of filing SLP and this SLP was finally rejected on 24th October, 1994. The learned Counsel for the petitioner submits that a Review Petition was also filed before the Supreme Court but that too has been rejected. Having failed in the challenge to the dismissal order upto Supreme Court, the petitioner chose to start another inning of litigation by filing O.A. before the CAT for the purpose of getting pension. This O.A. was rejected by the CAT on 8th October, 1996 and the review thereof was also rejected on 6th January, 1997.
4. Although the rules have been challenged in the earlier O.As. also before the CAT, another O.A. was filed before the CAT by the petitioner saying that no formal order has been passed with regard to the forfeiture of the pension and in absence of any formal order for forfeiture of pension the pension cannot be denied. This O.A. was also rejected on 31st August, 1999, in which the CAT held that the dismissal means the forfeiture of the pension by operation of Rules and no formal order was required to be passed. Now, in the present petition, the petitioner has again challenged the validity of Rules 24 and 41(1) of the Pension Rules and has sought the quashing of the order Annexure-1 which had been passed on 3rd June, 1995 by the Incharge, Air Headquarters, Annexure-2 order dated 8th of October, 1995 passed by the CAT in O.A. 243/96, Annexure-3 dated 6th January, 1997 passed by the CAT in review and Annexure-4 dated 31st August, 1999 passed in O.A. No. 16 of 1999.
5. We have gone through the orders passed by the CAT and have heard learned Counsel for the petitioner at length not only with regard to the rules which are directly in question but also with regard to many other rules to which he has made reference including the legislative history of such rules. The learned Counsel for the petitioner has also passed on a compilation of the zerox copies of several decisions of Supreme Court and other High Courts. In our opinion, the cases which the learned Counsel for the petitioner has cited before us and the number of rules to which he has made reference from the Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules, 1972 and Civil Service Regulations, the only relevant rules are Rules 24 and 41. Rules 8 and 9 to which the repeated reference was made by learned Counsel for the petitioner are not at all relevant for the purpose of deciding the controversy involved in this case as those rules deal with the case of the pension and the general conditions with regard to the grant of the pension and with reference to the future conduct. Here is a case in which admittedly the petitioner was dismissed from service after holding an enquiry and that dismissal order has already become final against him. Once the dismissal order becomes final, the pensionary rights of such person are to be governed by Rule 24 read with Rule 41. So far as the other rules are concerned, we may straightaway observe that there is nothing in these rules on the basis of which their validity can be attacked and it cannot be said that they are violative of any of the constitutional provisions. Rule 24 is reproduced as under:
Dismissal or removal of a Government servant from a service or post entails forfeiture of his past service.
This rule is with regard to the forfeiture of service on dismissal or removal of a Govt. servant and provides in no uncertain terms that dismissal of a Govt. service entails forfeiture of his service. Therefore, the consequence of a dismissal is the forfeiture of the past services.
6. Once the consequence of forfeiture of the past service is entailed under Rule 24 in the Chapter of qualifying service, we have to straight-away make reference to Rule 41 under Chapter 5 which provides for the classes of pension and conditions governing their grant. Rule 41 clearly says that a Govt. servant who is dismissed or removed from service shall forfeit his pension and gratuity. Therefore, after the consequence as entailed by Rule 24 with regard to the forfeiture of the past service, Rule 41 clearly seeks to forfeit the pension and the gratuity meaning thereby that if a person is dismissed from service, there is no question of his claiming any pension or gratuity. However, the proviso under Rule 41 says that the authority competent to dismiss or remove the Govt. servant from service may, if the case is deserving of special consideration, sanction of compassionate allowance not exceeding 2/3rd of the pension or gratuity or both which would have been admissible to him had he retired on compensatory pension and under Sub-rule (2) of Rule 41 it is provided that a compassionate allowance sanctioned under the proviso to Sub-rule (1) shall not be less than the amount of Rupees three hundred and seventy five.
7. Apart from the fact that the petitioner has in fact never pressed for this compassionate allowance under Proviso (i) to Rule 41(1), it may be observed that it is for the concerned Competent Authority to consider the case in appropriate cases as to whether the dismissed employee deserves any special consideration with regard to the sanction of compassionate allowance. No such case has either been set up or has been made out and therefore it is not necessary for this Court to examine as to whether the petitioner was entitled to this compassionate pension or not and it appears from the facts of this case that the concerned Competent Authority may have found the petitioner liable to punishment for the allegations for which he was dismissed way back in 1975 and even otherwise it is too late for the petitioner to seek such a relief and the petitioner has in fact not asked for it in his earlier litigation and in the opinion of this Court rightly so.
8. Learned Counsel for the petitioner wanted this Court to deal with the arguments pertaining to Rules 28 and 32. Rules 28 is a rule with regard to condonation of interruption in service in the Chapter of qualifying service and Rule 32 is with regard to verification of qualifying service after 25 years' service or 5 years before retirement. These rules have nothing to do if the person has been dismissed in pursuance of a disciplinary proceedings but are applicable in the case of persons who retire in normal course or who are compulsorily retired without there being a case of dismissal or removal by way of penalty under the disciplinary/appellate rules.
9. In any view of the matter, we find that the several rules to which the learned Counsel for the petitioner has made reference and the compilation of the several decision which he has passed on to us, does not even tangentially touch the controversy involved in the case and are rather wholly irrelevant for considering the case of pension for a dismissal employee. Therefore, we do not find it necessary to deal with those cases. There is no merit in this petition, the same is hereby dismissed. In the facts and circumstances of the case, the petitioner is not entitled to any other relief also. Parties to bear their own costs.