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2013 DIGILAW 27 (PAT)

Ram Nandan Singh v. State Of Bihar

2013-01-08

S.N.HUSSAIN

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ORDER All the aforesaid writ petitions have been heard together as analogous cases and are being decided by this common order as the reliefs claimed against the respondents by different petitioners are exactly the same and even the grounds taken for grant of the reliefs are similar. 2. It is not in dispute that Primary Agriculture Credit Societies ((hereinafter referred to as ‘the PACS’ for the sake of brevity) were created by the State of Bihar, their service conditions being governed by Section 66 B of the Bihar Cooperative Societies Act, 1935 (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Act’ for the sake of brevity) and Rule 33 of the Bihar Cooperative Societies Rules, 1959 (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Rules’ for the sake of brevity). 3. All the petitioners were PACS managers for the relevant time in their respective districts, but by now all of them have left PACS either by retirement or by absorption in Class III posts of Government service as per the order of the Supreme court in case of State of Bihar and others Versus Bihar Rajya Sahkarita Prabhandhak Seva Sangh, Patna and others reported in (1998) 8 SCC 218 . 4. These writ petitions have been filed for arrears of salaries and emoluments for different periods before their retirement or before their absorption in government services which are allegedly being denied by the respondent-Bank. 5. It is not in dispute that up-till December, 1998 salaries and emoluments were paid to all the PACS managers, but problem arose after the decision of this Court in case of Bihar Rajya Sahkarita Prabandhak Sangh and others Versus The State of Bihar and others reported in 1999 (3) PLJR 110 when the High Court decided that PACS Managers were entitled to D.A. on their salaries as per the Government Circular vide memo no.3608 dated 12.10.2000. 6. The question is as to who would give salaries to petitioners, as PACS Managers were not employees of the concerned Cooperative Bank, rather they were employees of the District Cadre Fund working under the control of District Central Cooperative Banks, the Managing Director of such Banks being ex-officio Secretary of District Cadre Fund. 6. The question is as to who would give salaries to petitioners, as PACS Managers were not employees of the concerned Cooperative Bank, rather they were employees of the District Cadre Fund working under the control of District Central Cooperative Banks, the Managing Director of such Banks being ex-officio Secretary of District Cadre Fund. District Cadre Fund created in every district is a corpus created by contributions from PACS, District Central Cooperative Bank and State Cooperative Bank and the custodian and controlling authority of the District Cadre Fund is the Managing Director of the concerned District Central Cooperative Bank upon whom the State Government has given responsibility to pay salaries to PACS Manager from District Cadre Fund. 7. It is not in dispute that payment of salary to PACS Manager is based on his performance as it is provided that if his collection is less than 40% then he has to be removed otherwise the District Central Cooperative Bank would pay salary to PACS Manager from District Cadre Fund from its Account No.1 of the concerned District Cooperative Bank. It is also not in dispute that there are three components of the District Cadre Fund, out of which the first is the PACS which has to contribute 1.25% of its collection of short term agricultural loan; the second is the District Central Cooperative Bank which has to contribute 0.75% from the advancement of loan; whereas third is the Bihar State Cooperative Bank which has to contribute 0.30% from the advancement in three instalments, out of which first instalment was to be paid immediately and after receipt of utilization certificate of the first instalment, the second instalment is to be paid and on receipt of utilization certificate of the second instalment the third instalment is to be paid. 8. The claim of the petitioners is that PACS and District Central Cooperative Bank are regularly contributing their shares, but the Bihar State Cooperative Bank after payment of first or in some cases second instalment had stopped contributing its share due to non-supply of utilization certificate for earlier instalment which is clearly due to inefficiency of Managing Director of the District Central Cooperative Bank who is the Secretary of the District Cadre Fund. 9. 9. The further claim of the petitioners is that Government is waiving agricultural loans due to which collection from the farmers by the PACS managers have considerably decreased due to which the District Cadre Fund has been put to loss and no amount is left in the fund for payments to the PACS managers. 10. A bare perusal of the pleadings of parties in these writ cases show that out of the aforesaid three components none of the petitioners have impleaded PACS in any of the writ petitions and only the Managing Director of the District Central Cooperative Bank has been impleaded and in some cases even the Bihar State Cooperative Bank has not been impleaded as party respondent although specific claim of the petitioners is denial of their due salaries and emoluments from the District Cadre Fund which has three components, including PACS and the Bihar State Cooperative Bank. 11. In the aforesaid circumstances, the specific claim of the petitioners is that the aforesaid Managing Director has not paid the petitioners’ admitted dues and emoluments due to which the petitioners are being punished for none of their faults. Had they committed the fault of collecting less than the prescribed percentage they could have been removed, but without passing any order of removal the petitioners are being punished in an indirect manner although they have committed no fault at all. 12. For such circumstances, the Cooperative Department, Govt. of Bihar had issued a circular/order dated 31.05.1989 with respect to the PACS, its MD and its Managers in which a provision of appeal to be filed in such situation before the Joint Registrar Cooperative Societies is made. Furthermore, in similar circumstances, a Bench of this Court vide order dated 12.09.2006 had disposed of CWJC No.3283 of 2005 and its seven analogous cases directing the petitioners of those cases to file appeals before the Joint Registrar, Cooperative Societies of their respective districts. 13. In the aforesaid facts and circumstances, all the aforesaid writ petitions are disposed of with liberty to the petitioners to file appeals before the Joint Registrar, Co-operative Societies of their respective district. 13. In the aforesaid facts and circumstances, all the aforesaid writ petitions are disposed of with liberty to the petitioners to file appeals before the Joint Registrar, Co-operative Societies of their respective district. If such appeals are filed along with all the requisites and evidences by the petitioners before such authority within one month from today the concerned Joint Registrar, Cooperative Societies shall consider the delay caused due to pendency of these writ petitions and after giving opportunities of hearing to the parties consider the same in accordance with law and shall decide it by a speaking order within six months from the date of filing of the concerned appeal or appeals.