Jai Pal vs State Of Himachal Pradesh And Others

Ajay Mohan Goel, J

The case of the petitioner is that an agreement was entered into between him and respondent No. 5 (Annexure P-3), dated 8th September, 2009, vide which, the petitioner, who stood appointed on contract basis as a Para Accountant, was to serve the Panchayat concerned on honorarium basis. The honorarium in terms of the contract was 1000/- per month. In nutshell, his grievance is that the agreement entered into between him and respondent No. 5 was never abided to in letter and spirit by respondent No. 5 and despite the petitioner always being willing to perform his duties, neither any work was assigned to him nor the honorarium to which he was entitled to, was ever paid to him. In this background, the petitioner has been filed this petition praying for the following reliefs:-

"i. That the petitioner may be allowed to work on the post of Para Accountant under water shed Development Scheme as the petitioner has strictly worked and has performed his duties under the guidelines of watershed Development Scheme as well as rules framed thereunder.

ii. That the order dated 13-02-2010 vide which services of petitioner has been terminated by respondent No. 5 may kindly be quashed and set aside.

iii. That respondent No. 5 may kindly be directed to pay the salary of the petitioner from September 2009 upto May, 2010 alongwith interest.

iv. Any other relief which this Hon'ble Court may deem fit and proper in the facts and circumstances of the case may also be passed in favour of the petitioner in the interest of justice."

The stand of the petitioner has been refuted by the respondents and the specific stand which has been taken by respondent No. 5 in its reply is that the petitioner right from beginning of his appointment was not sincere to his duties and from 08.09.2009 to 04.02.2010, he appeared in the office of Gram Panchayat only on 16 occasions and as the petitioner was not abiding by the terms of the contract, a show cause was also issued to him. During the Course of the arguments, this Court has been apprised that the services of the petitioner were terminated on 13.02.2010. The stand of respondent No. 5 has been seriously disputed by the petitioner who took the stand that the petitioner was always willing to perform his duties but on account of some ulterior motive, he was not assigned any work.

Having heard learned Counsel for the petitioner, this Court is of the view that there are highly disputed questions of fact involved in this petition which cannot be gone into by this Court in exercise of its powers under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. Here the issue is with regard to the implementation of the terms of the contract which stood entered into between the petitioner and respondent No. 5. Not only this, terms of the contract per se demonstrate that it is not as if the petitioner was to be paid wages for the work but he was only to be paid only the honorarium.

At this stage, learned Counsel for the petitioner submits that he may be permitted to withdraw this petition with liberty to agitate his cause before the Civil Court in accordance with law. Accordingly, the petition is dismissed as withdrawn with liberty as prayed for. Learned Counsel for the petitioner submits that the time spent by the petitioner while bonafidely pursuing this case before this Court as well as before learned Administrative Tribunal be excluded while calculating the limitation. It goes without saying that in case the petitioner does approaches the appropriate Court of law, then the time which has been spent by the petitioner while pursuing his remedy before the Administrative Tribunal as well as this Court shall be taken into consideration while calculating the limitation, as per law.

The petition stands disposed of in above terms. Pending miscellaneous application(s), if any, also stand disposed of accordingly. No order as to costs.