Central Administrative Tribunal - Delhi
R P Deswal vs M/O External Affairs on 8 August, 2023
1
OA No.60 of 2021
Court No.5 (item No.55)
Central Administrative Tribunal
Principal Bench
OA No.60/2021
Reserved on: 17.07.2023
Pronouncement on: 08 .08. 2023
Hon'ble Dr.Chhabilendra Roul, Member (A)
R.P. Deswal
Under Secretary (Retired)
Ministry of External Affairs
R/o House No. 31 Sector 31 Faridabad (Haryana)
-Applicant.
(Through Advocate: Applicant in person.)
Versus
1. Union of India
Through Addl. Secretary (Ad) Ministry of
External Affairs South Block, New Delhi.
2. The Foreign Secretary
Ministry of External Affairs
South Block New Delhi
3. The Secretary
Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs
Nirman Bhawan, New Delhi.
4. The Director
Directorate of Estates
Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs
Nirman Bhawan New Delhi.
5. The Director General
Central Public Works Department
Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs
Nirman Bhawan New Delhi. -Respondents
(Through Advocate: Mr.Rohit Sambher for Ms.Ritu
Singh)
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OA No.60 of 2021
Court No.5 (item No.55)
ORDER
By Hon'ble Dr.Chhabilendra Roul, Member (A):-
The present OA has been filed by the applicant against the order of withholding of Rs 1,13,003/- from the Retirement Gratuity of the applicant by Respondents vide their order dated 6.5.2019 ( Annexure-A1 , the impugned order).
2. The brief facts of the case are that the applicant was serving as Under Secretary in the ministry of External affairs. The applicant was allotted Apartment no.A 208 Curzon Road Apartments, KG Marg, New Delhi. This apartment remained under his occupation till 17.10.2013. On 13.6.2013, the applicant was allotted House Number A 237, Pandara Road, New Delhi. As the practice in Directorate of Estates, the applicant gave his consent to this allotment and hence, Respondent No 4-5 reflected technical occupation of this house against the applicant from the date of acceptance of allotment i.e. 13.06.2013. After Technical Occupation, the CPWD engineers carried out the necessary repairs and the allottee took actual possession of the residence thereafter. It is admitted fact that the applicant took actual possession of House 3 OA No.60 of 2021 Court No.5 (item No.55) No. A 237, Pandara Road on 17.10.2013 after obtaining the keys from the CPWD authorities on 10.3.2013. He availed 6 days time to move to the new accommodation.
2.1 The applicant retired from central government service on 31.12.2018 while giving No Due Certificate (NDC), the Respondent No. 3 raised a bill of Rs 1,21,078.22 against the applicant vide their reference dated 30.4.2019 for alleged double occupancy of Government Accommodation by the applicant. They raised the damage fee for House No. A 237, Pandara Road (on the basis of Technical Occupation) from 1.7.2013 to 17.10.2013 as the applicant was also occupying the House No. A-208, Curzon Road Apartments, KG Marg, New Delhi. Based on this, the Respondent No. 2 deducted Rs1,13,003/- from the retirement Gratuity of the applicant vide their order dated 6.5.2019. Being aggrieved, the applicant has come to this Tribunal seeking the following relief;
"A) That the Respondent No.1 is directed to release the withheld amount of retirement gratuity of the Applicant without further delay. B).That Respondent No.1 be directed to pay the penal interest on the amount illegally withheld by them as per Rule 68 of CCs (Pension) Rules 1972 4 OA No.60 of 2021 Court No.5 (item No.55) for the period from 01.01.2019 till the date of final payment (Annexure A11) C) That the Respondents be directed to pay the lititgation cost of Rs. 10,000 to the applicant. D) That the respondents be directed to pay a compensation of Rs. 1 lac for causing avoidable harassment the Applicant and unnecessarily drawing him to litigation.
E) That the Hon'ble Bench may kindly grant such other relief as deemed fit in the light of facts of the case.
3. On admission of the OA notices were issued to the respondents and they have filed their counter affidavit to which the applicant has also filed his rejoinder to the same.
4. The learned counsel for the applicant has reiterated the grounds pleaded in the OA by the applicant. The sole ground is that Technical possession is not actual possession. After allotment of a residence by the Directorate of Estates and acceptance by the allottee, the residential accommodation is shown as under
technical occupation by the allottee. There is significant time gap between technical occupation and actual occupation due to the fact that the CPWD takes considerable time to make the allotted house living- worthy. Hence, the auto generated demand by the Directorate of Estates is not the document to be relied 5 OA No.60 of 2021 Court No.5 (item No.55) upon. The Accounting Section of CPWD/Director of Estates have not adopted a robust accounting system to generate the payable licence fee, etc based on actual occupation. For this reason, employees are issued such kind of outstanding dues which are illegal and irregular.
5. The respondent No.4 vide their communication dated 20th May 2021 , during the pendency of the OA, has informed Respondent No 2 that the formal demand notice dated 30.4.2019 is computer generated which has a predefined format. They have agreed that there was no double occupancy by the applicant. Vide the above reference they have stated:
"2 A perusal to the OA filed by Shri Deswal, which is already with DOE will reveal that Shri Deswal has already retired on 31.12.2018 and had applied for NDC from the DOE. And on the basis of that t application the "Rent Assessment Report"
was issued bv DOE. The "Rent Asses5ment Report" as mentioned earlier shows a recovery of. 1,13,003/- due to the date of occupation of quarter no. A 237, Pandara Road, New Delhi being shown as 13.06.2013. This has resulted in damage fee in respect of quarter no. 208, Block A, DS, Curzon Road, New Delhi on the grounds of double occupancy. Now that the date of occupancy of the Pandara Road quarter has been revised, this damage fee in respect of the Curzon Road quarter may not apply. You are therefore requested to revise the "Rent Assessment Report" 6 OA No.60 of 2021
Court No.5 (item No.55) after adjusting the damage fee, etc., and intimate whether any dues are outstanding against Shri Deswal for A 237, Pandara Road, New Delhi and quarter no. 208, Block A, DS, Curzon Road, New Delhi. In view of the court Case, it may not be prudent to ask Shri Deswal to apply for NDC once again."
5.1 Based on the reference dated 20th May 2020 by the Respondent No.4, respondent No.2 has refunded Rs.1,13,003/- to the applicant vide voucher No. V4022 dated 1.7.2021. This has been intimated by them vide their submission in their counter affidavit (Annexure- A4).
6. In rejoinder, the applicant has not denied that he has received the refunded amount of Rs 1,13,003/- which was earlier recovered from his retirement gratuity. However, he prayed for payment of interest, litigation cost and compensation for the harassment undergone by the applicant.
7. I have gone through the records of the case thoroughly and heard the arguments carefully. In the instant case, substantial relief sought by the applicant in his OA regarding refund of the irregularly deducted amount of Rs 1,13,003/- from his retirement gratuity has been taken care of by the action of the respondents in refunding the same amount to him on 1.7.2021. 7 OA No.60 of 2021 Court No.5 (item No.55) That leaves the question of claim of interest on delayed payment of the deducted amount of gratuity to the applicant. There are catena of judgments, including those by the Apex Court, according which, in cases of irregular deductions or delayed payment of retirement benefits to the government servant for no fault of the employee himself/herself, the employer is liable to pay interest on such amount for the period of delayed payment. In view of this, I am of the considered view that in the instant case, the applicant was at no fault for the delayed payment. It was the botched up out- dated accounting system adopted by the Directorate of Estates which mechanically issues payable notices when employees or their immediate controlling authorities approach Respondent no. 4 to furnish No Due Certificate (NDC) in favour of retiring government servants that the recoverable amount was shown against the present applicant. In view of this, the respondents are liable to pay interest at applicable GPF interest rates for the period from date of retirement till the date of deducted amount was refunded. 8 OA No.60 of 2021 Court No.5 (item No.55) 7.1 Ordering payment of interest on the delayed payment of the deducted amount of Gratuity in the instant case shall not eliminate the menace of significant harassment faced by the retiring /retired government servants because of the archaic accounting and record keeping system adopted by the Directorate of Estates in collaboration with CPWD. There are nearly 3.5 million Central Government Employees posted at various locations in the country. On a rough estimate, nearly 50 % of them are occupying Government Accommodation. The Directorate of Estates must have the exact statistics in this regard. During a typical financial year the number of central government employees retiring is significant. During a typical financial year, the number official residences changing hands is also significant. However, the Directorate of Estates as well as the CPWD do not have unique identification number of each official residence. There is no robust software or platform to get automated updating of information at the conclusion of each episode in respect of a particular residence so that correct information is generated from the system. We pride ourselves as a software super power in the world. But, we have not adopted the basics of e- 9 OA No.60 of 2021 Court No.5 (item No.55) governance with appropriate Business Process Reengineering in the Directorate of Estates and CPWD. This affects million odd Government Servants. The plight of retiring and retired employees in running pillar to post to get the NDC from Directorate of Estates/CPWD and getting irregular demand notices is palpable. This is generally experienced by thousands of such employees. In view of this, the Ministry of Urban Development through its agencies like Directorate of Estates and CPWD should devise appropriate soft ware to create an appropriate platform to take care of the existing loopholes in the system.
8. In view of the above, the following orders are passed in the instant case:
8.1 The competent authority among the respondents shall pay interest at applicable GPF rates to the applicant for the period of delayed payment of the deducted amount from his retirement gratuity i.e from the date of retirement till the day the deducted amount was refunded.
8.2 The Secretary, Ministry of Urban Development, Respondent no. 3, shall furnish an affidavit regarding 10 OA No.60 of 2021 Court No.5 (item No.55) the efforts being made for system up-gradation in respect of unique identification of official accommodations and automated updating of information at different stage of events occurring like allotment, vacation, outstanding dues, licence fee generation and payment, repairs, authorized occupation, etc. If there is already any robust system in place, the same shall be mentioned in the affidavit. If the existing system is inadequate, taking into consideration of the above observations by this Tribunal, the affidavit shall contain the efforts are being made to improve the system or revamp it completely by introducing a robust e-governance system. This affidavit shall be furnished with 8 weeks from the date of receipt of certified copy of this order. 8.3 No order regarding costs.
(Dr. Chhabilendra Roul) Member (A) /mk/