Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Nov 3: Division Bench of State High Court comprising Chief Justice N Paul Vasanthakumar and Justice Tashi Rabstan today upheld the writ court order whereby premature retirement of the then Chief Khilafwarzi Officer of Jammu Municipal Corporation, Satish Khajuria was quashed.
The judgment of the writ court was challenged by the State by filing LPA before the Division Bench. However, the DB dismissed the appeal and upheld the quashment of premature retirement of the officer.
“The only reason to justify the compulsory retirement argued by the Senior AAG was that the writ petitioner was arrayed as accused person in three FIRs and some other allegations were also under probe”, the DB said, adding “when this court put a specific question as to whether in any of the probes any adverse finding is rendered or in the FIRs whether anything was found against the writ petitioner, Senior AAG fairly submitted that up to this date nothing was found against the writ petitioner”.
“In such circumstances mere registration of FIR or alleged probe of certain alleged irregularities cannot be a ground to retire a person compulsorily when his APR entries are excellent/outstanding and assessment of integrity as “beyond doubt” and “nothing adverse was noticed”, the DB said.
The DB observed, “the writ petitioner was prematurely retired at the age of 58 years—from July 01, 2015 by giving three months full pay in lieu of notice and he having been prevented from discharging his duties due to the order of premature retirement dated 30.06.2015 and the same having been found erroneous, the writ petitioner is entitled to get full salary for the period during which he was not allowed to work”.
DB further observed, “it may be noted at this juncture that writ petitioner will otherwise get 50% of his salary as pension from November 1, 2015 and the remaining amount of 50% only the writ petitioner will be getting consequent to quashing the order of premature retirement”, adding “thus the order of the writ court, restricting his salary to 30% up to the date of his reinstatement cannot be sustained and this portion of the order is set aside”.
“Since the writ petitioner has already reached the age of superannuation on July 31, 2016, the salary payable from November 1, 2015 to July 31, 2016 shall be paid to the writ petitioner after adjusting the pension amount if any already paid. The period of service up to 31.07.2016 shall be treated as regular service for all purposes and the pension, if any sanctioned, shall also be re-fixed with effect from August 1, 2016 within a period of eight weeks”, the DB directed.
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