CUTTACK: After a long struggle of more than 32 years, a lecturer will be paid the arrears of his salary entitlements, only four months before his retirement.
The Higher Education department has finally issued the orders for full payment of the arrears from June 1, 1988, after the Orissa High Court directed personal appearance of the Commissioner-cum-Secretary and Director in the matter.
The High Court had earlier in 2018 directed the department to clear the dues of Basant Kumar Sahoo, a lecturer in Physics at Rajsunakhala College in Nayagarh district.
He joined the college as lecturer in 1984 and will retire in February 2021. However, the department authorities sat over it for more than two years and a contempt of court petition was filed for non-compliance of the order issued by the court on July 6, 2018.
“In view of the order of the High Court, it is hereby ordered that arrears salary as admissible to Basanta Kumar Sahoo shall be paid along with interest at six per cent per annum from the date of entitlement,” the Commissioner-cum-Secretary said. Sahoo had filed his petition in 1999. The court on July 6, 2018 had directed the department to issue a fresh order of grant-in-aid salary entitlement in favour of Sahoo from January 6, 1988 within a period of one month, compute his arrear entitlement within a further period of one month and release the same with six per cent interest per annum in his favour within a further period of one month thereafter.
But the order was not implemented by the department. Following which, the HC had issued notices on a contempt plea on December 12, 2019. The department had not responded to it till the High Court issued orders for personal appearance of the two senior officers before it on November 3. On October 21, the Single Judge Bench of Justice Biswanath Rath had issued the personal appearance order.