Srinagar- Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) has ordered Additional Chief Secretary to Government, Forest Department, to remain present in person before it on November 9 if its order regarding an employee’s pension and other benefits was not complied with in its letter and spirit.
A two-member Bench of M. S. Latif (J) and Prasant Kumar (A) passed the order while hearing a contempt plea by one Z A Ahanger, seeking implementation of the Tribunal’s 8 May 2023 judgement whereby authorities were directed to calculate his pension and other pensionary benefits after taking the date of his superannuation as 30 June 2019.
“The above exercise was to be completed by the respondents (authorities) within a period of three months from the date of receipt of certified copy of the judgement,” the Bench observed, adding, “The orders passed in the contempt petition further reveal that the petitioner has not even been paid his provisional pension not to speak of release of his other retiral benefits as ordered in the judgement dated 08-05-2023.”
On May 8 this year, the Bench also underlined that the authorities were made conscious that right to pension cannot be taken away by mere executive fait or administrative instructions “since pension and gratuity are not mere bounties or the same are not given out of generosity of the employer but an employee earns it from his/her long service rendered in the department.”
To the contention by the authorities that it has come to the surface that Ahanger’s DOB in some documents issued by the J&K BOSE is shown as 11-06-1959 and in one of the documents it has been recorded as 1967, the Bench said, “This Court is confining itself to the implementation of the judgement passed by the DB of this court on 08-05-2023, which judgement, as on date, has neither been reversed nor assailed by the respondents before any higher forum, as such, the same has attained finality….”
“….the respondents (authorities) have taken this plea after a lapse of more than 27 years and that too after the retirement of the petitioner (Ahanger). Moreover, during the entire service period of the petitioner, the respondents never raised any objection with regard to the issuance of that order, as such, it is not open to them to raise the issue now,” the Bench said, underscoring, in light of the judgement by Apex Court, that when during the entire service period of an employee, no objections with regard to his/her appointment, was ever raised, then it is not open for the authorities to raise the issue after his/her retirement/death.
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