Calcutta High Court (Appellete Side)
Sri Subal Chandra Paul vs The State Of West Bengal & Ors on 12 June, 2023
DL-22
12.06.2023
Court No.5 WP.ST 31 of 2015
(AD)
Sri Subal Chandra Paul
Vs.
The State of West Bengal & Ors.
Mr. Atanu Biswas
Mr. Bikram Basak
... for the petitioner.
Mr. Tapan Kumar Mukherjee, Ld. Sr. Advocate
Mr. Pinaki Dhole
Mr. Avishek Prasad
... for the State.
The writ petition is directed against an order dated
November 14, 2014 passed by the West Bengal
Administrative Tribunal in O.A. 1173 of 2001.
By the impugned order, learned Tribunal directed as
follows:
"17. We, therefore, grant liberty to the petitioner
to apply for leave due and admissible within a period
of one month from the date of delivery of this
judgment. We direct the State respondents,
particularly respondent no.2 to sanction leave due
and admissible to the petitioner if applied for by him
within the stipulated period and pay admissible leave
salary within three months from the date of receipt of
the leave applications. The period of absence not
covered by leave shall be treated as dies non. His
retirement benefits shall be sanctioned on this basis
within three months thereafter. We also make it clear
that if no leave application is made by the petitioner
within the stipulated period, the respondents will be
at liberty to treat the entire period of absence as dies
non and sanction his retirement benefits accordingly."
Learned Advocate appearing for the writ petitioner
submits that, the writ petitioner was never released from
his earlier posting. He contends that, the order of transfer
was challenged before the High Court where an order of
status quo was passed. However, subsequently, the writ
petition was dismissed for default at a point of time when
the writ petitioner was already superannuated. He submits
that, he should be treated in service till the date of the
dismissal of the writ petition.
State is represented.
We find from the record that, the writ petitioner was
transferred by a memo dated July 10 1997. The writ
petitioner filed a writ petition challenging that order of
transfer. An order of status quo was initially passed by the
High Court. The writ petition was dismissed for default in
2008. The writ petitioner superannuated on May 31, 2009.
The order of status quo passed by the High Court lost
its effect on the dismissal of the writ petition.
The writ petitioner did not join the new post in terms
of the transfer order. The transfer order remains valid in
the eye of law.
In such circumstances, the learned Tribunal allowed
the writ petitioner liberty to apply for leave due and
admissible. The authorities were directed to sanction leave
due and admissible to the writ petitioner if applied for and
pay admissible leave salary within three months from the
date of receipt of the leave applications. The period of
absence not covered by the leave was directed to be treated
as dies non. Retirement benefits were directed to be
sanctioned on such basis within three months. The learned
Tribunal made it clear that if no application was made by
the writ petitioner within the stipulated period, the
authorities were at liberty to treat the entire period as dies
non and sanction his retirement benefits accordingly.
Since the writ petitioner did not join his transferred
post in terms of the order of transfer and since the order of
transfer remains valid, we do not find any material
irregularity in the directions issued by the learned Tribunal
as contained in the impugned order.
In such circumstances, we find no merit in the
present petition.
In the interest of justice and on the prayer of the
petitioner, we extend the time to comply with the order
impugned for a period of fortnight from date.
WP.ST 31 of 2015 is disposed of accordingly.
(Debangsu Basak, J.)
(Md. Shabbar Rashidi, J.)
