Allowed

Ram Dularey v. State of U.P. Thru. Prin. Secy. Panchayat Raj Vibhag Civil Secrt. Lko. and Others

Allahabad HC12 Dec 2022/281/2022

Case brief

AI extract

What is this about?

Special appeal allowed after condoning delay. Set aside Single Judge order denying Assured Career Progression (ACP) benefits. Direct District Panchayat Raj Officer to separately assess satisfaction of service at 10, 16, and 26 years. Clarified benefits are pension-based, not salary arrears.

What did the court decide?

Set aside Single Judge order; directed District Panchayat Raj Officer to reconsider ACP claim afresh considering service satisfaction at 10, 16, and 26 years separately; no salary arrears, only pensio

Ram Dularey Vs State of U.P. Thru. Prin… — Pension and Retirement Benefits | Allahabad HC (2022)

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Court No. - 2

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Case :- SPECIAL APPEAL DEFECTIVE No. - 281 of 2022

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Appellant :- Ram Dularey Respondent :- State Of U.P. Thru. Prin. Secy. Panchayat Raj Vibhag Civil Secrt. Lko. And Others

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Counsel for Appellant :- Sanjai Kumar Singh Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.

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Hon'ble Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya,J. Hon'ble Saurabh Srivastava,J.

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(C.M.A.No.2/2022)

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Office has reported a delay of 46 days in filing the special appeal.

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Heard learned counsel for the appellant-petitioner and learned State Counsel.

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Having regard to the averments made in the affidavit filed in support of the application seeking condonation of delay in filing the special appeal, we are satisfied that the delay has sufficiently been explained.

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Accordingly, the application is allowed and delay in preferring this appeal is hereby condoned.

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Order on memo of Special Appeal

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This special appeal under Chapter VIII Rule 5 of the Rules of the Court challenges an order dated 21.09.2022 passed by the learned Single Judge in Writ-A No.13626 of 2019 filed by the appellantpetitioner claiming the benefit of Assured Career Progression (A.C.P) has been dismissed.

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The appellant-petitioner had instituted the proceedings of the aforesaid writ petition challenging two orders passed on 22.09.2018 and 25.09.2018 whereby the matter relating to grant of certain post retirement benefits of the appellant-petitioner was disposed of, however, by the said order, his claim for grant of ACP and accordingly for fixing the last pay drawn and the pension payable to the appellant-petitioner has not been acceded to.

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Learned Single Judge while passing the order dated 21.09.2022 has heavily relied upon the reasons indicated in the order dated 22.09.2018 passed by the District Panchayat Raj Officer, Sitapur and has observed that on account of long absence from duty and also on account of various adverse material against the appellant-petitioner he has rightly been denied the benefit of ACP. Learned Single Judge has also permitted the appellant-petitioner to approach the concerned authority again in case he disputes the period of absence and he is able to produce relevant verifiable record from his service book to dispute the same.

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Considered the submissions made by the parties and perused the records available before us on this special appeal.

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The appellant-petitioner was initially engaged on the post of Gram Panchayat Vikas Adhikari in stop-gap arrangement in the year 1983.. He continued to serve in the said capacity, however, he instituted Writ Petition No.8563 (S/S) of 1988 and during the pendency of the said writ petition he was regularly appointed in the year 1988. After serving the respondents, he retired on

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31.07.2016 on his attaining the age of superannuation. He instituted the writ petition No.13820 (S/S) of 2017 with the prayer that appropriate direction be issued to the respondents to release the post retirement dues. The said writ petition was decided by the learned Single Judge by means of an order dated 17.08.2017 with a direction to the respondents to release the entire outstanding retirement dues within a period of one month from the said date. Accordingly, certain dues to the appellant-petitioner were released, however, as per the submissions made by the learned counsel for the appellantpetitioner, his pension has not been fixed on the basis of last pay which he would have drawn had he been given the benefit of ACP. The claim of the appellant-petitioner for grant of ACP has been rejected by the District Panchayat Raj Officer by passing the order dated 22.09.2018. It is this order dated 22.09.2018 along with another order dated 25.09.2018, which is in the shape of corrigendum, was challenge before the learned Single Judge.

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When we peruse the order dated 22.09.2018 read with the order dated 25.09.2018 passed by the District Panchayat Raj Officer, what we find is that it has been admitted by the District Panchayat Raj Officer that the representation made by the appellant-petitioner, dated 03.02.2020 can be considered only on comparison of the information available in the original records/service book which was sent to the Additional Director (Treasury and Pension), Lucknow by means of the letter dated 22.05.2018.

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Thus, it is clear that complete consideration of

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the claim of the appellant-petitioner was not made by the District Panchayat Raj Officer. We also notice that the entire claim of grant of ACP of the appellant-petitioner has been rejected by the District Panchayat Raj Officer by passing the order dated 22.09.2018 read with the order dated 25.09.2018 in just one stroke by stating that services of the appellant-petitioner have not been satisfactory.

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It is true that grant of ACP benefits to the government employee in the State of U.P., in case he is not promoted to the next higher post, are available on completion of satisfactory service of 10 years, 16 years and 26 years. Thus , satisfactory service is the condition precedent for grant of the benefit of time bound of ACP benefits.

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Consideration of the claim of the appellantpetitioner by passing an order by stating therein that his services were not satisfactory, in our considered opinion, cannot be approved of. It is quite possible that when the appellant-petitioner completed 10 years of service and he became eligible for grant of first ACP, there may not have been any adverse material against him and accordingly he would have been granted the benefit of first ACP.

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In this view, we are of the view that consideration of the claim of the appellant-petitioner for each ACP when the same became due on completion of 10 years, 16 years and 26 years of service is to be made separately by arriving at a conclusion as to whether his services were satisfactory or not in the previous 10 years, 16 years and 26 years. In the aforesaid view of the matter, we find that the

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order dated 22.09.2018 read with order dated 25.09.2018 passed by the District Panchayat Raj Officer, Sitapur so far as it denies the claim of ACP to the appellant-petitioner is not sustainable.

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We have arlready noticed that the District Panchayat Raj Officer himself while passing the order dated 22.09.2018 has stated that certain aspects related to claim of the petitioner can be considered only once the original records/service book of the appellant-petitioner is remitted back to the office of District Panchayat Raj Officer from the office of Additional Director (Treasury and Pension), Lucknow.

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In view of the aforesaid, we find that the entire claim of the appellant-petitioner relating to grant of ACP needs to be considered afresh in view of the aforesaid observations made herein above. All the aforesaid aspects of the matter appears to have been lost sight of by the learned Single Judge while deciding the writ petition filed by the appellant-petitioner.

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Accordingly, the special appeal is allowed and the order dated 21.09.2022 passed by the learned Single Judge in Writ-A No.13626 of 2019 is hereby set aside.

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The District Panchayat Raj Officer, Sitapur is directed to reconsider the claim of the appellantpetitioner for grant of benefits of ACP afresh in the manner observed above. Thus, the District Panchayat Raj Officer shall consider the claim of the appellant-petitioner separately for grant of ACPs on completion of 10 years, 16 years and 26 years of service. He shall separately consider the same and record a categorical finding as to whether on completion of 10 years his services

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were satisfactory or not in preceding 10 years and similarly as to whether his services were satisfactory or not in the preceding 16 years and 26 years respectively. The District Panchayat Raj Officer is directed to get the original record/service book of the petitioner backed from the office of Additional Director (Treasury and Pension), Lucknow and accordingly reconsider the claim of the appellant-petitioner afresh, as observed above.

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However, we make it clear that on consideration of the claim regarding ACP, as directed above, if the appellant-petitioner is found to be eligible and entitled for the said benefits, he shall not be entitled to any arrears of salary, rather he shall be given the benefit on national basis and the same shall be counted for the purposes of calculating the last pay drawn and fixation of his pension alone.

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Appropriate decision shall, thus, be taken by the District Panchayat Raj Officer under this order within two months from the date a certified copy is produced before him.

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There will be no order as to costs.

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Order Date :- 12.12.2022 akhilesh/

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Digitally signed by AKHILESHWAR KUMAR Date: 2022.12.13 13:00:52 IST Reason: Location: High Court of Judicature at Allahabad, Lucknow Bench

Ram Dularey v. State of U.P. Thru. Prin. Secy. Panchayat Raj Vibhag Civil Secrt. Lko. and Others

Case brief

What is this about?

What did the court decide?

Ram Dularey v. State of U.P. Thru. Prin. Secy. Panchayat Raj Vibhag Civil Secrt. Lko. and Others

Case brief

What is this about?

What did the court decide?

What the court decided

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