The Punjab and Haryana high court has summoned the Punjab chief secretary over a 25-year delay in deciding retirees’ pensionary benefits.
The bench of justice Sandeep Moudgil was hearing a clutch of petitions by around 50 petitioners demanding recomputation and enhancement of the commuted value of their pensions.
The court also came across other petitions, in which responses had not been filed. The court observed that there is no stay to the show-cause notice for contempt proceedings and the chief secretary’s reply is still awaited. In July, the court imposed a cost of ₹ 1 lakh, to be recovered from the personal salaries of some officials of the public health department. However, on August 28, although it was shown that fine as been recovered but government failed to explain source of the fine deposited by the government. In another related matter, the court also imposed a fine of ₹ 50,000 on two senior health and family welfare department officials. However, on the next date of hearing on September 30, the court found that “the affidavit (from the chief secretary) does not clarify or establish that the said amount was, in fact, recovered from the salaries of the concerned officials. It imposed another fine of ₹ 2 lakh on some senior officials and issued a show-cause notice to the chief secretary, asking why proceedings under the Contempt of Courts Act should not be initiated against him. On October 12, the chief secretary was summoned for the next day’s hearing. Meanwhile, the government challenged the ₹ 2 lakh fine order before the division bench and procured a stay order. Also, the chief secretary did not appear on October 12 even as there was no stay order with regard to his summoning.
The chief secretary was also told to specifically identify the officials from whose salary the amount had been deducted. The court observed that the division bench that passed the stay order has not been informed “in right earnest and with fairness.”
