The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Friday directed a competent authority to take prompt disciplinary action against all delinquent officials of the Council for Works and Housing Research (CHWR) who allowed an officer facing corruption charges to retire without any disciplinary proceedings.
The direction came on a petition of CWHR officer Badarul Haq who had moved the court for getting pensionary benefits. He submitted that his pensionary benefits had been withheld by the CWHR on ground of corruption charges in two projects of the federal government.
A counsel for the petitioner submitted that pensionary benefits could not be withheld on account of the pendency of a criminal case and/or departmental proceedings after the lapse of four years from the date of retirement.
The counsel submitted that if a government servant who had been suspended pending an inquiry into his conduct attained the age of superannuation before the completion of the inquiry, the disciplinary proceedings against him shall abate and the government servant shall retire with full pensionary benefits and the period of suspension shall be treated as a period spent on duty.
A federal law officer submitted that the service regulations of the CWHR were non-statutory so the petition was not maintainable. He also submitted that recovery could be made from the pension of a retired government officer who had caused losses to the national exchequer.
He requested the high court to dismiss the petition leaving the respondent to take action against the petitioner even after he had retired from service under the pension rules and initiate the recovery proceedings against him for the losses caused to the government exchequer.
A division bench of the SHC comprising Justice Aftab Ahmed Gorar and Justice Adnanul Karim Memon, after hearing the arguments, observed that departmental proceedings against the petitioner had not been completed even after almost four years of his retirement and primarily the departmental proceedings had no legal consequence and could not come in the petitioner’s way to claim pensionary benefits.
The bench observed that prima facie, it was fault and negligence of the respondent department that had failed to initiate the departmental proceedings against the petitioner in time and allowed him to retire from government service in 2018 and waited for unknown reasons, and later kept in abeyance the notification of his retirement and pensionary benefits on account of alleged colossal loss to the exchequer.
The SHC observed that there were mere allegations against the petitioner and there was no conviction by a competent court of the law, due to which it could not presume that the petitioner was guilty of the charges levelled against him, which were yet to come on record.
The high court observed that pensionary benefits could not be stopped on account of any charge and stopping them in such a situation was in violation of the law and principle laid down by the Supreme Court (SC).
The bench added that long and unjustified delay in the payment of pension to the pensioner amounted to humiliation to the retired officer and his family despite the stricture and orders passed by the SC.
The SHC directed the competent authority to release the pensionary amount of the petitioner and pay the due pension amount and other ancillary benefits to him within two weeks. Disposing of the petition, the high court also directed the competent authority to look into the matter of the petitioner and take prompt disciplinary action against all delinquent officials who in their lethargic attitude failed and neglected to take disciplinary action against the petitioner within stipulated time and allowed him to retire from service in 2018.
The high court observed that such disciplinary proceedings shall be initiated against delinquent officials forthwith and culminate into its logical conclusion within a reasonable time after providing a meaningful hearing to them.
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