Harpal Singh vs Bupendra Kaur Aulakh And Others

Manoj Kumar Tiwari, J

Petitioner served as a Teacher and, upon attaining the age of superannuation, he retired from service on 31.08.2016. He filed Writ Petition (S/S)

No. 584 of 2015 before this Court seeking the following reliefs:

“(a) Issue a writ, direction or order in the nature of mandamus commanding the respondents to release the entire arrear of salary including the

difference of revised pay and arrear of bonus to the petitioner since 1998.

(b) Issue a writ, order or direction in the nature of mandamus commanding the respondents not to interfere in the discharging of peaceful service of

petitioner and not to restrain petitioner from putting his signature in attendance register.â€​

The said writ petition was disposed of by Writ Court vide order dated 04.12.2017, by recording the statement made by learned State Counsel and

also by directing the authorities to release pension and arrears of salary to the petitioner, as admitted to them, within eight weeks from the date of

order.

In this Contempt Petition, petitioner has alleged that compliance of the order has not been made, inasmuch as, no retiral dues have been paid to the

petitioner.

After issuance of notice, various response affidavits were filed. Paragraph no. 4 of compliance affidavit filed by Mr. Satpal Singh, In-Charge Block

Education Officer, Bahadarabad, Haridwar is reproduced below:

“4. That in compliance of the order passed by this Hon’ble Court, the answering respondent on dated 12.01.2018 an amount of Rs. 5,83,843/-

have been released to the petitioner and thereafter on dated 27.01.2018 an amount of Rs. 10,403/- , on dated 21.05.2019 the 90% of the provident

fund amounting Rs. 1,90,000/- and further an amount of Rs. 71244/- on dated 08.08.2019 have been released. It is pertinent to mention here that the

pension of the petitioner after released from the treasury an amount of Rs. 13,37,261/-and an amount of Rs. 8,32,320/- of the gratuity of the petitioner

have been released on dated 04.06.2019 and rest arrears of the salary of the petitioner amount of Rs. 25,97,552/-have been issued vide Voucher no. A

22020020 on 02.09.2019.â€​

Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the order passed by Writ Court has been partly complied with and full compliance has not been

made so far. This submission, however, has been disputed by learned Standing Counsel, who submits that not only all the retiral dues have been paid to

the petitioner and, in fact, some excess amount has also been paid to him.

The only direction issued by Writ Court was to release the admitted dues to the petitioner and there was no positive direction to pay any specified

amount to him. An officer can be hauled up for contempt only when there appears to be willful disobedience of any order on his part. This is not so in

the present case, inasmuch as, a substantial amount of nearly Rs. 25,00,000/- has already been paid to the petitioner.

In such view of the matter, no case for proceeding under Contempt of Courts Act is made out against the respondents.

Accordingly, the Contempt Petition is closed. Contempt notices issued against the respondents are hereby discharged.

However, petitioner shall be at liberty to approach the appropriate forum, if he is not satisfied with the amount paid to him as retiral dues.