New Delhi: The Supreme Court has imposed an exemplary cost of Rs 1 lakh on the school education department of the Tamil Nadu government for “unnecessarily” dragging a case related to a retired sanitary worker K. Lakshmanan’s pension benefits.
The SC was hearing a special leave petition (SLP) filed by the school education department of the state government challenging Madras High Court’s judgment which allowed pensionary rights to a retired sweeper-cum-sanitary worker who worked for 20 years in the department.
The apex court dismissed the SLP as well as the application seeking condonation of the delay in filing the SLP, saying that it was “bereft of any cogent reason”.
The state department had submitted the time spent in obtaining legal opinion and translation of certain documents as the reason for delay in filing the petitions, but the SC did not find this to be sufficient and imposed the “exemplary costs” for unnecessarily delaying the matter being dragged in further litigation.
“In the totality of the circumstances, we find absolutely no reason to condone the delay in filing the petitions and are inclined to dismiss the application seeking condonation of delay as also these petitions with the imposition of exemplary costs where, unnecessarily this matter relating to pensionary rights of a Sweeper-cum-Sanitary Worker is sought to be dragged in further litigation (sic),” said the division bench of Justice Dinesh Maheshwari and Justice Hrishikesh Roy in the order dated 9 December.
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‘Unnecessarily dragging the matter in litigation’
The apex court noted that the present petition, which was filed against the 2020 division bench order of the Madras HC, was delayed by a period of 156 days, excluding the Covid-19 pandemic. The SC had given several extensions on the period of limitation for filing any petition or appeal before any court or tribunal in the country during the pandemic.
It was highlighted by the SC that the state department had even delayed the review petition which was dismissed by Madras HC in March this year, and the petition seeking SLP to appeal against the HC’s order by 154 days.
The SC dismissed the petitions while imposing a cost of Rs 1 lakh on the state department and asked it to deposit the amount in the welfare fund of the Supreme Court Employees Welfare Association within four weeks from the day of the order.
However, the court gave liberty to the state department to “recover the amount of costs from the persons/officers responsible for protracting the litigation and sanctioning such frivolous petitions without sufficient cause and without any justification”.
Entangled in series of litigation
K. Lakshmanan was engaged as a sweeper-cum-sanitary worker in 1992 for Rs 105 as monthly salary. His services were regularised in 2002 only after he filed a writ petition in the Madras HC.
After 10 years, when he attained the age of superannuation in 2012, he applied for pension by taking into account 50 per cent of his service before regularisation, which was denied. He then filed another writ petition in 2015 in which the HC ordered the state department to sanction pensionary benefits to him considering his 50 per cent of service before regularisation along with his 10 years of service from 2002 till the time of superannuation.
The single bench order which came in 2017 was challenged by the state department, but was rejected by the division bench of the HC in 2020. The HC had even ordered the department to disburse pensionary benefits to Lakshmanan within eight weeks from the date of the order passed on 13 March 2020.
The ‘baseless’ review petition against the 2020 order was also dismissed by the division bench of the high court in March this year.
Highlighting the plight of the sanitary worker entangled in a series of litigation to secure his pensionary benefit, the Supreme Court noted how he had to go through several stages of litigation which included writ petitions, intra-court appeal and even a review petition.
On the top of this, the SC observed that the State department also made inordinate delays to pursue the petitions and dubbed it as “frivolous” and “baseless”.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)
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