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Judgment
Surinder Singh, J.—The petitioner was working as Sr. Assistant and retired on 30.4.2009 from the respondent-Corporation. The husband of the petitioner Ratan Lal Chauhan had taken a loan from H.P State Cooperative Bank to which the petitioner stood guarantor and she gave an undertaking to the DDO to deduct the instalment of loan every month from her salary, in case of default made by the principal Borrower only on the written demand of the aforesaid Bank and to remit the same into the loan/limit with interest. Further in case of her suspension, termination and dismissal or seeking voluntary retirement from service during the currency of the said loan/limit, under any circumstances and against during the service, if her pay salary is held up on account of any reason by the employer under the service rules, in that event her Head of the Department/DDO may pay the outstanding dues of the Bank from her terminal benefits. On this undertaking, she was permitted to stand guarantor for her husband with respect to loan amount.
It is the case of the petitioner that her leave encashment /gratuity after retirement was not released to her. Thus, she filed the present writ petition seeking its release with interest.
Vide order dated 18.3.2010, while issuing the notice to the respondent-corporation a direction was issued by the Principal Division Bench of this Court to disburse the undisputed amount to the petitioner, if not already disbursed, within two weeks from the date of production of the copy of the said order. It came to the notice of this Court that the said order was not complied with, as such, on 8.4.2011 a further clarificatory order was made that in case the undisputed amount is not released/disbursed to the petitioner, the same shall carry interest @ 18% and the Officers responsible for the delay in disbursing the amounts shall be personally liable for the same. Thereafter on 26.4.2010 an amount of Rs. 1,96,118/- was released by the respondent Corporation to the petitioner vide cheque No. 240995 whereas the balance amount of Rs. 3,54,498/- was withheld allegedly on account of default committed by the Principal borrower in the repayment of loan amount.
Vide order dated 8.8.2011 it come to the notice that principal borrower has liquidated his loan amount on 4.6.2011 thus, Court had ordered to release the gratuity amount to the petitioner forthwith, which was released on 11.8.2011 vide cheque No. 119655 dated 8.8.2011.
Mr. H.K. Paul, learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that the aforesaid amount of leave encashment and gratuity was unnecessarily and wrongly withheld by the respondents, as such the petitioner is entitled for an interest @ 18% per annum from the date it fell due. To support of his arguments, he referred to the relevant provisions of the CCS (Pension Rules) and put his reliance on the judgment of the apex Court in Gurmit Singh Vs. State of Punjab, and further ventilated that the petitioner never gave an undertaking to the respondent-corporation that the said amount was required to be paid to the Bank in case of making default by the principal Borrower. She had only undertaken to pay the monthly instalments to the Bank with interest if the principal borrower failed to pay the instalments, that too, on having been so certified by the Bank to the Corporation. Further, in case of her voluntary retirement, termination and dismissal, such amount could have been withheld but not in case of normal retirement on attaining the age of superannuation.
Mr. Ajeet Saklani, learned counsel for the corporation submits that in the light of undertaking the corporation was justified in withholding the amount for making payment to the Bank and in view of orders of the Court passed from time to time the amount was released.
The record reveals that the petitioner informed the executive Director of the Corporation that her husband is paying the loan instalments to the Bank on regular basis and he is still in service and will be retiring from service in 2011 and further added that in case some amount is left due at the time of his retirement, the same will be cleared by him from the dues and reiterated for the release of the amount at the earliest.
Vide letter dated 4.6.2011 (Annexure P-10) the Bank certified that the loan amount of Sh. Rattan lal Chauhan for which the petitioner stood guarantor stands fully liquidated and nothing was due from him as on date and the guarantee in the loan case given by the petitioner stood cancelled.
Vide Annexure P-11 dated 21.6.2011 the Bank calculated the interest to the tune of Rs. 105881/- which have been paid by the loanee.
Though there was no undertaking to withhold the amount on account of normal superannuation by the petitioner and no information was sent by the bank during her service tenure that principal borrower had committed a default in making the payment, the respondent Corporation was only entitled to deduct the monthly instalments from the salary of the petitioner as per her undertaking and not from retiral benefits. Further, when the respondent-Corporation received the intimation that the full and final payment of the loan amount has been made by the Principle borrower in the month of April, 2010, it further took four more months in releasing the gratuity amount. In my considered opinion, undue hardship has been caused to the petitioner by the act of the respondent Corporation, for releasing the amount due to the petitioner and they were not justified to withhold the leave encashment and gratuity amount. Therefore, in these circumstances, the petitioner is held entitled to simple interest @ 18% from the date it fell due.
The respondent-Corporation is hereby directed to pay the simple interest @ 18% per annum within a period of two months, from today and they are at liberty to recover it from the officer/official who was responsible for causing delay.
Now qua pension and other retiral benefits as claimed in prayer 1, 2 and 3 of the petition, the matter be listed before the Principle Bench along with connected matter CWP No. 1882/2010.