The Madras High Court has held that it cannot order payment of terminal benefits to employees who were not allowed to retire from service pending corruption charges but had attained the age of superannuation even as the action initiated against them was pending before the tribunal for disciplinary proceedings.
A Division Bench of Justices S. Manikumar and V. Bhavani Subbaroyan passed the ruling while reversing an order passed by a single judge of the High Court on September 1 to pay 75% of the terminal benefits due to three commercial taxes department employees facing disciplinary proceedings before a tribunal in Coimbatore.
“Granting terminal benefits to persons facing proceedings before a tribunal constituted to deal with cases relating to corruption and corrupt practices, in our view, is erroneous and would open the floodgates to all those alleged to have indulged in corrupt practices to seek for disbursement of retiral/pensionary benefits,” the Bench said.
In so far as the facts of the case was concerned, the judges pointed out that Directorate of Vigilance and Anti Corruption (DVAC) sleuths had recovered unaccounted money from the office of the Commercial Tax Officer at Tiruchengode where the three employees L. Ramachandran, K. Viswalingam and B. Suthakaran were serving on November 11, 2013.
Subsequently, on receipt of a report from the DVAC, the government invoked the provisions of the Tamil Nadu Civil Services (Disciplinary Proceedings Tribunal) Rules, 1955, and referred the matter to the tribunal for adjudication. It also suspended the three employees from service and ordered that they should not be allowed to retire until further orders.
However, since all the three employees attained the age of superannuation in 2014 and 2015, they made a representation to revoke their suspension and sanction the retirement benefits. Their plea was rejected by the Commissioner of Commercial Taxes Department on August 2, 2016, and the rejection was challenged by way of a writ petition.
A single judge of the High Court allowed the writ petition partly and ordered payment of 75% of the retirement benefits since it was represented that the tribunal had not even framed charges against them though more than three years had elapsed since the DVAC reportedly recovered unaccounted money from their office.
Disagreeing with the order passed by the judge, the Bench led by Mr. Justice Manikumar said: “When the DVAC had recovered unaccounted money from the office where the respondents worked, would it be right to order disbursement of 75% of the retirement benefits even before framing and conclusion of the charges by the Tribunal? Our answer is ‘No.’”
The Bench allowed a writ appeal preferred by the Commissioner and said: “The writ court (presided by the single judge), with due respect, has failed to consider the very purpose of the constitution of the tribunal, which was to enquire into charges of corruption and corrupt practices, more so, on the facts and circumstances of the case on hand.”
