IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA CWJC No.2906 of 2009 1. SATISH KUMAR SINHA 2. SHAMBHU SHARAN SINGH .............. PETITIONERS Versus INDIAN DRUGS & PHARMACEUTICALS ................ RESPONDENTS ----------- 02/ 04.03.2009 Heard Mr. Ranjan Kumar Jha counsel for the petitioner and counsel for the State. In the opinion of this Court once the voluntary retirement of the two petitioners was already accepted and a decision to this effect was also communicated by the order dated 19.12.2008, their subsequent communication dated 21.12.2008 for withdrawing their offer of voluntary retirement was itself wholly uncalled for. It was part of the provisions of such scheme of voluntary retirement notified by the Indian Drugs and Pharmaceutical Limited (IDPL) dated 21.02.2002 that request of voluntary retirement once accepted and communicated could not be withdrawn. That being so, the order dated 19.12.2008 (Annexure-1) would stand as a bar for the petitioners to claim anything afresh in the matter of reconsideration of acceptance of their voluntary retirement. Reliance placed by the learned counsel for the petitioners has on a judgment of Apex Court in the Case of Bank of India Versus. O.P. Swarnakar & others reported in (2003) 2 SCC 721 is equally misplaced. In the said judgment the Apex Court while examining the scheme of voluntary retirement had only held that if the employee concerned had accepted a part of the benefit under the scheme, he - 2 - could not approbate and reprobate nor could he resile from his earlier stand and that unless the benefit of the retirement scheme was first made available or the amount if ex-gratia was paid as a whole, the employer had no right to accept the voluntary retirement. In the present case however the scheme of voluntary retirement does not envisage any such stipulation of prior payment of the package amount as a condition precedent to acceptance of the offer of voluntary retirement. That being so, this application so far as they relate to assailing the decision of acceptance of voluntary retirement of the petitioners as contained in Annexures-1 and 2, is wholly misconceived and is accordingly dismissed. S.Sb/- (Mihir Kumar Jha, J.)