IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.1965 of 2009 Date of decision: 26.03.2010 Partap Singh ….Petitioner versus Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam and others …Respondents CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN ------ Present: Mr. R.N. Lohan, Advocate, for the petitioner. None for the respondents. ----- 1. Whether reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment? No. 2. To be referred to the reporters or not? No. 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the digest? Yes. ----- K.Kannan, J (Oral) 1. There is no representation for the respondents, although at the previous hearing, the counsel for the respondents had taken time to secure instructions. The case is, therefore, being disposed of with the available records and with the assistance of the counsel for the petitioner, since it is a matter that is stated to be expressly covered by the decision of this Court. 2. The issue relates to the deduction made from the terminal benefits towards the alleged loss suffered by the Electricity Board for damage to transformers and transformer oil. The contention of the petitioner is that he was allowed to be superannuated and admittedly Civil Writ Petition No.1965 of 2009 - 2 - there was no enquiry or charge relating to the alleged loss said to have been caused by the petitioner. His further contention is that there is no basis for the assessment of the loss and the Board could not have assessed unilaterally some figure of alleged loss without issuing even a show cause notice against the assessment of loss and the recovery that was subsequently made. 3. The contention of the petitioner is well merited and this aspect has been considered by a decision of this Court in Civil Writ Petition No.8100 of 2005 by a Division Bench in its decision dated 21.09.2006 that any recovery from the terminal benefits without a charge-sheet or without affording an opportunity to an employee to show cause against such recovery was bad. 4. The recovery made through the impugned orders are quashed and the respondents are directed to making the payment which is withheld from the terminal benefits within a period of 8 weeks from the date of the receipt of the copy of the order with interest 7.5% per annum. This is without prejudice to any lawful constitution of an enquiry or recovery that may be possible as per the relevant rules by taking independent action. 5. The writ petition is disposed of on the above terms. (K.KANNAN) JUDGE 26.03.2010 sanjeev