Patna High Court: The Bench of Ahsanuddin Amanullah, J., allowed the writ petition filed with a prayer of expeditious disposal on the grounds that delay was being caused by the respondent in examining the witnesses and this was coming in the way of consideration of petitioner’s superannuation that was to be done taking into account his age.
The facts of the case were that the petitioner was working in place of his brother who died in 1988. He continued to work without any complaint but suddenly in the year 1994, on a complaint, a full-fledged departmental enquiry was held by the Railways in which he was ultimately exonerated. It was submitted that thereafter again complaint was made in 2013, for the same charges and on the one hand departmental proceedings were initiated and on the other hand, a criminal case was also instituted. In this criminal case, it was submitted that it was the authorities who were not cooperating as witnesses are not being examined on behalf of the prosecution. This would cause a delay in the superannuation which was due within a few weeks as the criminal case would come in the way of consideration. The prayer was to expedite and conclude the trial at the earliest.
The Court allowed the petition finding prayer to be reasonable. [Hoti Rai v. State of Bihar, 2019 SCC OnLine Pat 307, Order dated 08-03-2019]