State of Bihar and Another vs Bholan Choudhary and Another

Shiva Kirti Singh & Hemant Kumar Srivastava, JJ.—Heard learned counsel for the appellants. Nobody appears on behalf of respondents. The State has preferred this appeal against the order of writ court dated 5.8.2005 whereby writ petition preferred by the respondent no. 1 bearing CWJC No. 11337/2001 was allowed and the order of punishment dated 21.10.2000 whereby 75% of pension of the writ petitioner had been withheld for a period of three years in a proceeding under Rule 43(b) of Bihar Pension Rules was quashed on the ground that the procedure of detailed enquiry for awarding major punishment was not followed by the authorities.

After hearing learned counsel for the appellants, perusing the impugned order and the averments made in the memorandum of appeal, we find that there is no dispute on facts that prior to retirement of respondent no. 1 he was given only a show cause notice in respect of certain charges and after his retirement, only on perusing reply of the retired employee submitted two days prior to his retirement, the order of punishment dated 21.10.2000 was passed without holding any detailed enquiry through an enquiry officer as required under Bihar Pension Rules.

A bare perusal of proviso (iii) to Rule 43(b) of the Bihar Pension Rules shows that for inflicting permissible punishment under the Bihar Pension Rules the departmental proceeding has to be conducted in accordance with the procedure applicable to proceedings on which an order of dismissal from service may be made. In the present case the procedure was only to issue show cause notice on basis whereof only a minor punishment would have been awarded to the respondent no. 1 if he had been in service. Thus, on the basis of facts and legal position, no fault can be found in the order under appeal.

The appeal is, therefore, dismissed, No costs.