IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA CWJC No 12898 of 2004 1 Dr Ashok Kumar Chanchal, son of Harihar Prasad, Reader (MPS) in the Department of Zoology in Sardar Patel Memorial College, Udwantpuri, Biharsharif, Nalanda 2 Dr Dharama Deo Pandey, son of Sri Hari Nath Pandey, Reader (MPS) in the Department of Botany, Nalanda College, Biharsharif, District – Nalanda 3 Dr Avinash Kumar Srivastava, son of Akhauri Tarkeshwar Prasad, Reader (MPS) in the Department of Philosophy, Nalanda College, Biharsharif, District – Nalanda - Petitioners Versus 1 The Chancellor, Universities of Bihar, Patna 2 The State of Bihar through the Commissioner –cum- Secretary, Department of Higher Education, Patna 3 The Commissioner –cum- Secretary, Department of Finance, Government of Bihar, Patna 4 The Director, Higher Education, Government of Bihar, Patna 5 The Magadh University, Bodh Gaya through its Registrar 6 The Vice-Chancellor, Magadh University, Bodh Gaya - Respondents ----------- 14 06.05.2011 In view of the order dated 21.08.2006, this application is being pressed only on behalf of petitioner No 1. This case exemplifies how University teaching employees are forced into litigation rather teaching by insensitive and mindless attitude of the State and the University contrary to the State Litigation Policy. It is sheer waste of time of everybody including this Court as no legal issues are involved. Counter affidavit and supplementary counter affidavit having been filed, with consent of parties, the writ petition is being disposed of at this stage itself. The petitioner came to this Court with a prayer that his longstanding arrears in respect of salary has remained unresolved as in most cases of Teachers since 1983. Having come to this Court with such 2 a plea, it should have shamed the State and the University for their gross inefficiency in the matter but what to talk of shame, they showered disgrace on the Teachers. Petitioner’s claim was that as against a claim of Rs 13,87,823/-, as calculated by the University itself, the claim was arbitrarily reduced at the stage of State Auditors without even notice or hearing the petitioners and the claim was passed after reducing almost Rs 9 lacs therefrom. This Court was not shocked as this is how the State Auditor has functioned all along. The Teachers are not even told on what account, such heavy reduction of claims are made for it appears that the Auditor requires the Teachers to personally approach them for settlements. No effort is made by the Auditor to enquire from the Teacher or communicate his findings to the Teacher nor does the University communicate the same and it takes the plea that it cannot help it. It can only pay to the extent sanctioned by the State Auditor. The net result is that the Teacher, who has spent his lifetime in the University, must now spend the last of his lifetime in the Courts and the Courts are burdened with frivolous litigation which involves no law. In the first counter affidavit, the only reason for deduction shown was that the deduction was being made on account of change of pay scale at the level of Rs 14,940/- in view of letter dated 04.09.2009 of the State Government. It is further stated from the Auditor’s report that though this account settlement is being done in the year, 2009-2010, accounts are being settled only to February, 2006 leaving the balance period for yet another round of litigation. Now it may be noted that this correction of pay scales of Rs 14,940/- has already been declared by this Court to be wrong by a detailed 3 judgment in a batch of writ petitions being CWJC No 13301 of 2010 and its analogous cases (Ashutosh Kumar Sinha and Others –Versus- The Magadh University, Bodh Gaya and Others. As is usual in this State, the judgments are meant to be consigned in waste paper basket. The judgment of this Court is yet to be implemented which has given rise to large number of contempt applications. All the Teachers are spending more time litigating in the High Court than in the teaching. Thanks to the insensitive attitude of the authorities. A second counter affidavit has now been filed giving details of the settlement as made by the Auditor. It gives no reason why the account is being settled only upto February, 2006. What is more surprising and virtually mala fide on part of the State Auditor is that while on one account, he takes the arrear liability upto February 2006, from that he mischievously deducts payments which were made in the year, 2007-2008 as well ignoring the liability of 2005-2006. He then deducts over Rs 4 lacs on account of the pay scale difference. This is clearly malicious if not mala fide on part of the State Auditor. I, therefore, have no option left but to direct that the amount claimed as arrears as per the statement as contained in Annexure-R/2 to the counter affidavit is valid and the deduction on account of pay scale difference is wholly unauthorised in view of the judgment of this Court, as noted above. If that be the situation then as per the statement prepared by the University and contained in Annexure-R/2 the total amount payable to the petitioner would be Rs 9,22,290.50 P out of which Rs 4,29,519/- has been paid. The balance would be paid by the University to the petitioner within three months from today, the responsibility whereof 4 would be on the Principal Secretary, Human Resources Development Department, Government of Bihar and the Registrar of the University. In view of the attitude of the State, I deem it fit to award a cost of Rs 10,000/- as against the State in the present case to be paid to the petitioner. With these observations and directions, the writ petition is disposed of. M.E.H./ (Navaniti Prasad Singh)