Neutral Citation No. - 2024:AHC-LKO:67823
Court No. - 4
Case :- WRIT - A No. - 1635 of 2024
Petitioner :- Satish Kumar Ojha And Another
Respondent :- State Of U.P. Thru. Its Prin. Secy. Irrigation
Deptt. Govt. Of U.P. Lucknow And 3 Others
Counsel for Petitioner :- Alok Kumar Tripathi
Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.
Hon'ble Rajesh Singh Chauhan,J.
1. Heard Sri Alok Kumar Tripathi, learned counsel for the
petitioners and Sri Sudhanshu Tripathi, learned Standing
Counsel.
2. By means of this petition, the petitioners have prayed for the
following reliefs:-
"(i) to issue a writ, order or direction in the nature of Mandamus
Commanding the Opposite Parties to grant benefit of old pension scheme
taking into account the entire length of services of the petitioners rendered
by them as daily wager for the purposes of qualifying service for Regular
Pension along with all consequential benefits expeditiously or within the
time stipulated by this Hon'ble Court.
ii) to issue a writ, order or direction in the nature of Mandamus
commanding and directing the Opposite Parties to consider the case of
the petitioners in the light of judgement and order passed by Hon'ble
Supreme Court in Civil Appeal No.6798 of 2019 "Prem Singh Vs. State of
Uttar Pradesh and ors."
3. Attention has been drawn towards Annexure No.8 of the writ
petition, which is an order dated 07.12.2023 passed by the Apex
Court in bunch of Special Leave Petitions, wherein the fact has
been considered by the Apex Court that the State Government is
ready and willing to comply with the common judgement and
order dated 02.09.2019 in respect of the contempt petitioners.
The learned counsel has further submitted that pursuant to the
aforesaid undertaking being given before the Apex Court, the
State Government/ competent authority has passed the
consequential orders making compliance of the order of the
Apex Court. It is further submitted that the petitioners
approached the competent authority for redressal of his
grievance but to no avail, as no appropriate orders have been
passed. Therefore liberty may be given to the petitioners to
approach the opposite party no.1 preferring a fresh
representation and direction may be issued to decide the same
strictly in accordance with law, with expedition.
4. Sri Tripathi has drawn attention of this Court towards one
letter dated 15.06.2024 preferred by the Executive Engineer,
Karya Prabharit Adhisthan Prakoshta on behalf of Engineer-in-
Chief, Irrigation Department addressing to all concerned
Executive Engineers apprising that the payment of pension to
all the employees who are the petitioners in re: Prem Singh
(supra) has been made and who are not petitioners in the
contempt petition in re: Prem Singh (supra) shall also be
entitled for the same benefit, therefore, those employees may
also be provided the same benefit on the basis of principles of
parity.
5. Sri Tripathi has also submitted that the authrities are making
payment of pension to similarly placed employees, therefore,
the same benefit may be provided to the petitioners.
6. Therefore, in view of the above, without entering into merits
of the issue, I hereby dispose of this petition finally at the
admission stage giving liberty to the petitioners to prefer a fresh
representation to the opposite party No. 1, i.e., the Principal
Secretary, Irrigation Department, Civil Secretariat U.P.,
Lucknow ventilating their grievance taking all pleas and
grounds which are available with them enclosing therewith the
copy of their earlier representation, if any, which are necessary
for disposal of the representation within a period of ten days'
from today and if such representation is preferred by the
petitioners within the aforesaid stipulated time, the authority
concerned shall consider and dispose of the same strictly, by
passing a speaking and reasoned order strictly in accordance
with law after affording an opportunity of hearing to the
petitioners, if it is so required, with expedition preferably,
within a period of six weeks from the date of receipt of certified
copy of this order and the decision thereof shall be intimated to
the petitioners forthwith.
6. It is needless to say that if the petitioners enclose the copy of
the aforesaid letter dated 15.06.2024, the authority concerned
shall look into the aforesaid letter while disposing of the
representation of the petitioners.
(Rajesh Singh Chauhan,J.)
Order Date :- 30.9.2024
(Manoj K.)
Digitally signed by :-
MANOJ KUMAR
High Court of Judicature at Allahabad,
Lucknow Bench