HIGH COURT OF UTTARAKHAND AT NAINITAL Writ Petition No. 578 of 2006 (S/S) Ram Niwal Gupta. ……..Petitioner Versus S tate of Uttarakhand and others. …….Respondents Mr. D.S. Patni, Advocate for the petitioner, Mr. Sushil Vashishtha, Brief Holder for the State. Mr. B.D. Uppadhyay, Advocate for respondent nos. 2 & 3. Dated: November 15, 2010 Hon’ble V.K. Bist, J. Heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the entire material available on record. 2. This petition has been filed by the petitioner seeking a writ of mandamus directing the respondents to pay gratuity, pension and other pensionary benefits to the petitioner alongwith the penal interest @ 24%. 3. Briefly stated that in the year 1966, the petitioner was appointed on the post of Routine Grade Clerk with the establishment. On 31.03.2005, the petitioner retired from the post of Office Assistant Grade II from Uttarakhand Power Corporation, Office of Executive Engineer, Electricity Distribution, Rudrapur, District Udham Singh Nagar. It is asserted in the petition that on 29.12.1998 fire broke out in the office and entire service records pertaining to the employees who have been superannuated and who are dead were burnt. The persons, who were in service, their service records were thereafter re-prepared. An F.I.R. was lodged by Executive Engineer at P.S. Khatima. On the date of incident of fire i.e. on 29.12.1998, the charge of service record was not with the petitioner. Before being superannuated on 2 31.05.2005, the petitioner has submitted all the pension papers with the competent authority. After a long correspondence, on 28.11.2005 the petitioner wrote to Executive Engineer, Uttarakhand Power Corporation, Rudrapur that superannuation notice dated 31.05.2005 was received by him in the hospital and at the time of fire on 28/29.12.1998, the entire charge of Establishment Clerk and of an Administrative work was entrusted to one Sri K.C. Pandey, Office Assistant II. In this letter he further prayed to approve his pension papers and release pension with the assertion that 6 months have passed after being superannuated but he has not received any pension. It is asserted that, as the petitioner had handed over the entire charge and the documents one week before his retirement, thus there is no occasion to withheld the pensionary benefits of the petitioner. 4. In paragraph-10 of the rejoinder affidavit filed by the petitioner on 27th April, 2010, the petitioner has submitted that the petitioner has yet not received the following payments:- a. 10% of gratuity (i.e. approximately ` 30,000/-), b. Medical allowance since date of retirement i.e. 31.05.2005 to till date (` 330/- per month). c. Arrears of salary due pursuant of the implementation of VI Pay Commission. 5. On the order hand, Mr. B.D. Uppadhyay, the learned counsel for the respondent nos. 2 & 3 has submitted that in case, the said amount as claimed by the petitioner has yet not been paid to him, the Department, after verifying the same, will make such payment to the petitioner at the earliest. 3 6. In view of the averments made by the learned counsel for the respondent nos. 2 & 3, the writ petition is disposed of with the direction to the respondents to make payment of balance retiral dues of the petitioner, which are admissible to him, very-very expeditiously preferably within a period of six weeks from the date of production of a certified copy of this order. 7. All the pending applications stand disposed of. (V.K. Bist, J.) 15.11.2010 NCM: