IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA CWJC No.7603 of 2006 SAVITRI DEVI Versus THE STATE OF BIHAR & ORS ----------- 3. 25.07.2008 Heard learned counsel for the petitioner and the State. Counter affidavit has been filed on behalf of the State also. The petitioner is the widow of the deceased employee aggrieved by an order of punishment dated 19.5.2000 at Annexure-18 denying the deceased anything beyond subsistence allowance for the period of suspension and debarring him from consideration for promotion infinity. Learned counsel submits that on charges of alleged defalcation departmental proceedings were initiated against the deceased. An F.I.R. was also lodged. The Police after investigation submitted final form in 1995 itself which came to be accepted by the court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Jehanabad on 21.10.1996. The departmental proceedings, however, continued. The deceased filed his show cause. While the matter rested at that stage the husband of the petitioner having superannuated on 30.11.1994 was deceased on 31.5.1998. It is submitted that prior to the issuance of the impugned order of punishment, no second show cause notice was ever issued. Learned counsel for the State sought to support the impugned order to submit that the petitioner could have availed the remedy of appeal; that there had been no procedural irregularity in issuance of the order of punishment. This Court in the facts and circumstances of the case does - 2 - not consider it necessary to deal with the issues that whether the order of punishment denying anything beyond subsistence allowance is vitiated for non-compliance of Rule 97(3) of the Bihar Service Code in absence of notice to show cause and whether an order of major punishment of denial of promotion infinity could have been passed against the deceased, in the facts and circumstances of the present case. Considering the submission, not disputed in the counter affidavit, that no show cause was ever issued to the erstwhile deceased during his life time for the proposed punishment after completion of the departmental proceedings, the order of punishment per se becomes illegal. In any event the order passed against a dead person is a nullity. In the result, the writ application is allowed. The impugned order dated 19.5.2000 is, accordingly, quashed. The petitioner shall be entitled to the consequential service benefits of her deceased husband to be complied with within a period of four months from the date of receipt and/or production of a copy of this order. AKS/ (Navin Sinha, J.)