IN THE HIGH COURT FOR THE STATES OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH CWP No.16574 of 2010 Date of decision : 14.01.2011 Davinder Jit Kaur … Petitioner Versus State of Punjab and others …Respondents CORAM : HON’BLE MR.JUSTICE PERMOD KOHLI Present: Mr.Surmukh Singh, Advocate for the petitioner. Mr.Puneet Gupta, Addl.AG, Punjab. * * * Permod Kohli, J. Husband of the petitioner namely Gurcharan Singh was serving as a Junior Engineer with respondent No.3. He died while in service on 15.4.2009. The petitioner claims to have completed all papers for family pension and also produced the LRs certificate to the respondents for payment of family pension and other service benefits of the deceased- employee who had rendered more than 29 years of service. The grievance of the petitioner is that the entire pensionary/retiral benefits have not been paid. In the reply filed, it is stated that after the death of the deceased-employee and on getting the papers from Almirah and scrutiny of the record, some shortage of material was found for which some amount is to be recovered from the petitioner and for that purpose, only the gratuity has been withheld. In regard to the GIS claim, it is mentioned that the petitioner was not a member of GIS, therefore, he is not entitled to the same, whereas the deceased-employee is entitled to the leave encashment, GPF and the pensionary benefits. Admittedly, some service/retiral benefits have been released in favour of the petitioner including the provisional pension. Insofar as withholding the gratuity and recovery on account of shortage of material is concerned, no disciplinary proceedings were initiated against the deceased employee regarding alleged shortage. Recovery from the government employee is one of the punishment as provided under law and no recovery is CWP No.16574 of 2010 permissible in the absence of findings of fact recorded by any competent authority and disciplinary proceedings having been initiated and punishment imposed on the employee. In view of the above, no recovery can be effected from the service/penisonary benefits of the deceased-employee. In totality of the circumstance, this petition is disposed of with the following direction:- Respondents will settle all the service and retiral claims including family pension in favour of the petitioner with a period of three months and consequential benefits be released within a period of one month thereafter. Petitioner is entitled to the statutory interest on gratuity and GPf and interest at the rate of 6% on the delayed payment of other retiral benefits. (Permod Kohli) Judge 14.01.2011 sd 2