Allahabad High Court
State Of U.P.Thru Prin.Secy. ... vs Dr. (Smt.) Amita Gupta on 9 March, 2021
Bench: Ritu Raj Awasthi, Manish Mathur
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD, LUCKNOW BENCH
?Court No. - 1
Case :- SPECIAL APPEAL DEFECTIVE No. - 136 of 2021
Appellant :- State Of U.P.Thru Prin.Secy. Labour Deptt. Lucknow & Ors.
Respondent :- Dr. (Smt.) Amita Gupta
Counsel for Appellant :- C.S.C.
Counsel for Respondent :- Amol Kumar
Hon'ble Ritu Raj Awasthi,J.
Hon'ble Manish Mathur,J.
Heard learned Standing Counsel for the appellants and Mr. Amol Kumar, learned counsel appearing for respondent.
Special Appeal has been filed with reported delay of 229 days as on the date of filing. Learned counsel appearing on behalf of respondent does not have any objection in case delay is condoned. As such, delay in filing of Special Appeal is condoned and with the consent of learned counsel for parties, the appeal is being heard on merits itself at the admission stage.
Special appeal has been filed against the judgment and order dated 19.06.2020 passed in Writ Petition No.9391(SS) of 2020 (Dr. Smt. Amita Gupta vs. State of U.P. & Ors.)
Learned counsel for appellants submits that by means of impugned judgment, benefit of services rendered by the writ petitioner on ad hoc basis for the purpose of granting post retiral benefits has been granted in parity with earlier judgment rendered by this Court dated 22.07.2014 passed in Writ Petition No.1573 (S/B) 2012 (Dr. Sushil Chandra Tiwari & ors vs. State of U.P. & Another).
Learned counsel for appellants submits that the writ petitioner was not entitled to be granted parity of the judgment rendered in the case of Dr. Sushil Chandra Tiwari (supra) in view of the fact that after passing of the judgment in the said case, the State Government came to the conclusion that the judgment had been rendered on misrepresentation made by the writ petitioner of the said writ petition and as such the benefits granted earlier to Dr. Sushil Chandra Tiwari was subsequently recalled. It is submitted that once the benefits granted to Dr. Sushil Chandra Tiwari were recalled by the State Government on the grounds of misrepresentation, the present writ petitioner was not entitled to the benefit of the said order.
Learned counsel appearing on behalf of respondent on the other hand has submitted that the judgment rendered by this Court in the case of Dr. Sushil Chandra Tiwari (supra) has already attained finality since it has not been challenged in any higher forum and the judgment and order dated 22.07.2014 still in existence. Learned counsel has also submitted that the present writ petitioner having a similar case was rightly granted parity by means of the impugned judgment.
Learned counsel for respondent has also drawn attention to the fact that the State Authorities have already granted benefit of ad hoc services rendered by similarly situated persons, such as, in the case of Dr. (Smt.) Pratibha Nigam in which direction was issued in similar circumstances by this Court vide order dated 06.07.2016 passed in Writ Petition No.15321 (S/B) of 2016. It is further submitted that against the said judgment, Special Leave petition No.5007 of 2017 was filed and was dismissed vide order dated 20.03.2017. Both the orders are on record.
Upon consideration of submissions advanced by learned counsel for parties and perusal of material available on record, it is apparent that by means of impugned judgment, only parity has been granted to the writ petitioner with the case of Dr. Sushil Chandra Tiwari (supra) on the ground that the writ petitioner is similarly situated to the said person and was therefore entitled for counting of the services rendered on ad hoc basis for post retiral benefits. It is not disputed that the petitioner was not similarly situated as Dr. Sushil Chandra Tiwari. It is also undisputed that the judgment rendered in the case of Dr. Sushil Chandra Tiwari (supra) has already attained finality and was not challenged before any appellate forum.
We are of the considered opinion that once a judgment has been rendered on a lis between the parties by this Court, it is not open for the State Authority to sit in appeal over the judgments rendered by this Court and as such they are bound either to comply with the same or to challenge in a higher forum. In the present case, since the judgment of Dr. Sushil Chandra Tiwari has already attained finality, the learned Single judge has not committed any error of law in granting benefit of the same to the writ petitioner particularly after recording the finding that the writ petitioner was similarly situated as Dr. Sushil Chandra Tiwari.
Consequently, we do not find, the present appeal to be fit for granting indulgence and as such, the appeal is dismissed at the admission stage itself.
(Manish Mathur,J.) (Ritu Raj Awasthi,J.)
Order Date :- 9.3.2021
Subodh/-
