Paras Ram vs The State of H.P. and Others

Kuldip Singh, J.—The Petitioner has prayed a direction to the Respondents to pay him Rs. 13,000/- along with interest at the rate of 12% per annum. The further case of the Petitioner is that from 1990, he worked as work-charged at Sub-Division, Gohar, District Mandi. In the year 1999, the Petitioner and his family availed LTC facility provided under the Rules and they had gone from Gohar to Kanayakumari. The relevant papers along with bills amounting to Rs. 13,000/- were submitted by the Petitioner to Respondent No. 3 in the year 1999, but no payment was made to Petitioner. The Petitioner served a notice dated 27.06.2001 to Respondent No. 3 and requested him to pay the amount, but to no avail. The Petitioner lastly issued reminder dated 20th November, 2002, to Respondent No. 3 and requested him to make the payment of LTC bills of the Petitioner, but even then no payment has been made to the Petitioner.

The Respondents contested the petition by filing reply. It has been admitted that Petitioner had availed LTC facility in the year 1999 and he submitted his bills in the office of Assistant Engineer, Gohar, who forwarded the same to Executive Engineer, Sunder Nagar vide letter dated 18.06.1999, duly verified for Rs. 11,000/-. The bills were inadvertently misplaced in the office of Executive Engineer and could not be traced despite best efforts. The Petitioner was asked several times orally to submit his claim through duplicate bills, but he has shown his inability.

It has been submitted that another ''beldar'' Durga Dass had availed the facility of LTC from Sunder Nagar to Kanayakumari and claimed Rs. 16,500/-. The claim of Durga Dass was passed for Rs. 4,956/- which was for to and fro of three persons from Sunder Nagar to Kanayakumari. It has been stated that, in these circumstances, the proportionate amount of Petitioner comes to Rs. 3,304/- in addition to fare from Gohar to Sunder Nagar and back which comes to Rs. 72/-. Thus, the total proportionate amount admissible to Petitioner comes to Rs. 3,304/- + Rs. 72/-, Rs. 3,376/- and not Rs. 11,000/- which was inadvertently verified by Assistant Engineer, Gohar. The bill was required to be passed at Divisional Office. The bills were not passed at Divisional Office and, therefore, the Petitioner is not entitled to Rs. 11,000/-.

The Petitioner has filed rejoinder and has stated that his claim was rightly verified by Respondent No. 3 for Rs. 11,000/-. The Petitioner had submitted all documents in original with the Respondents and he has forgotten the sums of amount under claim.

I have heard the Petitioner in person and the learned Assistant Advocate General. It has come on record that claim of Petitioner was verified by Assistant Engineer of the Sub-Division where the Petitioner had worked. The stand of the Respondents is that Assistant Engineer, inadvertently, verified the claim of Petitioner for Rs. 11,000/- which was required to be passed at Divisional Office. The claim was not passed at Divisional Office. Therefore, the Petitioner is not entitled to the claim of Rs. 11,000/-.

The Respondents have placed no corroborative evidence on record to show that LTC claim of the Petitioner, in fact, was required to be passed at Divisional Office. Assuming that Assistant Engineer was not competent to verify/pass the claim, but still the fact remains that Assistant Engineer has verified the fact that the Petitioner has spent Rs. 11,000/- on LTC. This fact gains significance when it is not the stand of the Respondents that claim of Rs. 11,000/- of the Petitioner verified by Assistant Engineer was factually not correct. The Respondents, as noticed above, have not placed on record corroborative material to establish who was the competent officer to pass the bills.

The Respondents at the initial stage never refuted the claim of the Petitioner for Rs. 11,000/- on the ground that his bill was required to be passed at Divisional Office. The Respondents asked the Petitioner to submit duplicate bills for obtaining claim. The Petitioner took the stand that he had already submitted the original documents with his claim and he did not remember the details for submitting the duplicate claim and, therefore, the Petitioner did not submit the duplicate bills.

The Respondents calculated the amount of Rs. 3,376/- for payment against the LTC claim of the Petitioner on the basis of claim put-forward by Durga Dass. It is not clear that Durga Dass and the Petitioner proceeded exactly on the same route for claiming LTC. The main route of Durga Dass was from Sunder Nagar to Kanayakumari and that of Petitioner was from Gohar to Kanayakumari. But, it cannot be said from the material on record that Durga Dass and Petitioner touched almost same stations while on LTC.

In view of above, the petition is allowed. The Respondents are directed to pay amount of Rs. 11,000/- to the Petitioner within a period of three months.