IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA CWJC No.5753 of 2002 Dr. Vinay Bhusan Gupta, Son of Late Satyadev Prasad Gupta, Resident of Mohalla Kalyani, Police Station Kazi Mohammadpur, District Muzaffarpur at present I.C. Medical Officer, Additional Primary Health Centre, Village Okari, Block Ghosi, District Jehanabad. ---------- Petitioner Versus 1. The State OF Bihar. 2. Director in Chief, Health Services, Health Department, New Secretariat, Patna. 3. Regional Deputy Director, Magadh Division, Health Services, Gaya. 4. Civil Surgeon, Jehanabad. 5. I.C. Medical Officer, cum Drawing & Disbursing Officer, Primary Health Centre, Block Ghosi, District Jehanabad. 6. The District Magistrate, Jehanabad. ---------- Respodents ----------- 5 12.07.2010 Heard Mr. Partha Sarthy, learned counsel for the petitioner and counsel for the State. Though a number of prayers have been made in this writ application but the time, being the best healer, in a space of eights years during pendency of this writ application, the grievance of the petitioner now has been sought to be confined for payment of certain stretches of salary, namely:- 1. from 8.12.98 to 10.1.99, 2. for the month of February, 2001 and 3. from 1.5.2001 to 31.5.2002. Inasmuch as, a writ application was 2 filed on 7.5.2002 and a counter affidavit also was filed in this case by the respondent no.4 on 26.7.2002, this Court would confine itself for the grievance of the payment of salary of the petitioner for the period 8.12.98 to 10.1.99, February 2001 and from 1.5.2001 to 31.5.2002. At this stage, Mr. Partha Sarthy points out that the petitioner has certain grievance with regard to the payment of salary for the period 28.6.94 to 30.6.94 and from 1.6.95 to 6.6.95. In the opinion of this Court the cause of action for payment of salary of petitioners for the aforesaid period of the year 1994-95 had arisen in the year 1994-95 itself and therefore this writ petition filed on 7.5.2002 would not be maintainable on the ground of delay and laches. The respondents have also taken a plea that the period in question was not covered by tenure of posting of the petitioner for which claim of payment of salary for the period December 98 to May 02 has been made. In view of the fact that this writ application was initially filed for quashing of the order dated 26.6.2001, another order 3 dated 13.2.2002 and exclusively for payment of salary for the period 8.12.98 to 10.12.99 as also for the month of February 2000 and from May 2001 to 7.5.2002, this Court is not going to make this writ application an unending story. There are certain inherent and self contained safeguards with regard to seeking relief to the petitioner in a writ application and if the petitioner wilfully and purposely did not choose to include, the prayer for payment of his salary for the period of 1994-95 he cannot be allowed to add such prayer by filing a belated supplementary affidavit on 3.5.2010 and thus raising a State matter of payment of salary of 1994-95 after inordinate delay of more than 15 to 16 years. Accordingly, the prayer of the petitioner for payment of salary for the period June, 1994 to June 1995 (from 28.6.1994 to 30.6.1994 and from 1.6.1995 to 6.6.1995) is hereby rejected. Coming to the second part of the prayer of the petitioner with regard to the payment of salary for the period 8.12.1998 to 10.1.1999, the respondents have admitted such 4 claim in paragraph no.6 of the counter affidavit wherein it has been stated that:- “-------No doubt the leave for the period from 8.12.98 to 10.1.99 has been sanctioned by the Regional Deputy Director, Health Services, Magadh Division, Gaya. The petitioner was himself Drawing and Disbursing Officer and hence it was his duty to take steps for drawal of the leave salary said to be sanctioned by the Respondent no.3.” In view of the fact that the respondents have themselvs admitted the payment of salary for the period 8.12.1998 to 10.1.1999, this Court would direct that if payment of salary for such period has not been made to the petitioner, the same must be made to him within a period of three months from the date of receipt/production of a copy of this order. As with regard to the second part of the prayer of the petitioner for payment of salary of February, 2001, the respondents have clearly asserted that the amount of salary for the said period has been received on 22.2.2001 vide bill no. 18/2000-2001 and if this amount despite being drawn by the authority has not been made to the petitioner, the payment thereof also must be 5 made to the petitioner. If, however, the payment of such amount has already been made to the petitioner, there would be no question of double payment in this regard for payment of salary for the month of February, 2001. Now coming to the last part of the grievance of the petitioner as with regard to the payment of salary for the period from 1.5.2001 to 31.5.2002, this Court would find that there were certain allegations against the petitioner and the petitioner was also found absent from duty and had proceeded on leave without obtaining prior permission from the authorities concerned. In this regard, the respondents have also placed reliance on the order of the Regional Deputy Director of Health Services, Magadh Division, Gaya dated 23.6.2001 and an inspection report of the Civil Surgeon cum Chief Medical Officer, Jehanabad dated 18.8.2001. Once this Court would find that this aspect of the matter was already gone into by the authority and in fact the petitioner was also communicated the order dated 16.3.2002 withholding his payment of salary by the competent authority, namely, Regional Deputy Director of Health, Magadh 6 Division, Gaya, it would be difficult for this Court to hold that the petitioner is entitled for payment of salary unless those orders are set aside. In any event, this Court would find that there were justifiable reasons for withholding the payment of salary for the period in question for which there is a dispute as with regard to the actual working of the petitioner and/or being absent from duty without obtaining prior permission. Inasmuch as, this application remains confined to only payment of salary and there are justifiable reasons for non- payment of salary for certain stretches as indicated above, this Court would not like to go into the correctness of the orders for which the petitioner may have any other remedy as may be available in law. With the aforementioned observations and directions, this application is disposed of. Rsh (Mihir Kumar Jha, J.)