Sharda Devi wife of Late Prem Chand Upadhaya vs The State of Bihar

Heard counsel for the parties.

This appeal has been filed by the present appellant since

the learned single Judge refused to pass any order giving the benefit

of pension etc. by considering the husband of the petitioner-appellant

to be an employee of the State. The learned single Judge, however,

did extend the relief for giving a direction for release of such

deductions, which were made during the period the husband of the

petitioner had worked including Group Insurance and General

Provident Fund, if he had subscribed to the same.

The short facts which are required to be noted is that the

husband of the appellant was appointed as a Pharmacist by one Dr.

K.N.Rai, the then Civil Surgeon-cum-Chief Medical Officer,

Bhojpur. It later transpired that these were fake appointments or

illegal appointments done by the then Civil Surgeon-cum-Chief

Medical Officer and he had indulged in large scale irregularities in

such appointments. Hundreds and thousands of cases of such kind,

where termination was effected, accumulated before the High Court

and by a common order by a Division Bench a direction was issued

to scrutinize each and every case and take a decision.

It is also of relevance that because of that illegality,

appointment of the husband of the petitioner was terminated vide

order dated 20th February, 2004, which is Annexure-6 to the writ

application. Before the directive of the Division Bench for

examining the cases of such terminated employees could be put in

motion, God willed otherwise, the husband of the petitioner died on

17.06.2007. The learned single Judge, therefore, after considering the

various facets of submissions and law opined as under:

"On a consideration of rival submissions and after perusal of the pleadings on record, it appears, the husband of the petitioner died before he could be considered by the Committee as per order of this Court in the light of

materials/documents to be placed by him for regularization of his service if the same was found in accord with the observations made by the Hon''ble Apex Court in the case of Uma Devi (Supra). Pension or family pension is payable to an employee who holds a substantive post in the Government. The husband of the writ petitioner was not holding a post under the State on the day he died. He was not considered and found fit for regularization in the service obviously for the reasons that he did not appear before the Committee set up in this regard by the government to substantiate his claim. How can he, therefore, be considered for grant of pension/family pension. There is clear findings recorded in the impugned order that the enquiry committee on perusal of records found his appointment forged/fake and/or illegal. The pension or family pension is payable to an employee who died while in the employment of the State government. Having given my anxious consideration to the submissions of the parties this Court is unable to find any illegality much less patent illegality in the order passed by the respondent Director-in-Chief (Annexure-13) meriting interference by invocation of its extraordinary and discretionary writ jurisdiction.

Before parting with the records, this Court would observe that in the representation

(Annexure-12) the petitioner had also prayed for payment of certain dues to her which was/were deducted from the salary of her husband. The husband of the petitioner while in service was permitted to subscribe to the General Provident Fund. It also appears from the service book that the husband of the petitioner had also subscribed to the Group Insurance Scheme of the Government and certain deductions were made from his salary under this head. These deductions, together with statutory interest, are required to be paid to the petitioner, if not already paid. Let the respondent(s) calculate and pay those dues which were deducted from the salary of the husband of the petitioner under the head(s) Group Insurance and General Provident Fund while he was in the employment within 08 weeks from the date of receipt/production of a copy of this order."

The facts being what they are, the learned single Judge

has extended the benefit which can be extended, but the expectation

of the present appellant to declare the husband to be a regular

Government servant when no such decision was taken or could be

taken since he was already dead and gone, the expectation on her

behalf that she could be entitled to pension and other benefits is a

totally misplaced expectation to have within the framework of the

fact and law.

Appeal has no merit. It is dismissed.