JUDGMENT :

G.S. Patel, J.

1. A teacher in government service struggles for seven years to retire from that post. His application for voluntary retirement is of 2016. The present record paints before us an utterly dismal picture and of a complete failure of even a minimal regard to procedural due process, by which we mean non-arbitrariness and fairness in administrative action. It is true that the factual background has had many twists and turns, but these should not blind us to essential facts. It is not as if this Petitioner mischievously or fraudulently sought to retire under the Voluntary Retirement Scheme (“VRS”).

He was, he says, driven to that by circumstances entirely beyond his control. It should have been a routine application, processed routinely. Instead, for the last seven years, a matter of voluntary retirement has been met with the most obdurate opposition and refusal. We have considered the record and we find no valid or tenable reason for this continued opposition. At the broadest level, if an application for voluntary retirement can usually be refused only if the applicant is not qualified to apply for VRS. VRS has certain conditions of eligibility because, in distinction to resignation, VRS has certain benefits. If a person seeking voluntary retirement is indeed of value to the institution, he is often persuaded to withdraw that application and to continue in employment where his services are in fact required. In this case, nobody has said that the Petitioner is not eligible to apply for VRS. Nobody has asked him to continue in service. He is not even being denied voluntary retirement. For seven long years, he was told only one thing: that his voluntary retirement application is under consideration. In that delay itself lies monumental injustice. And then, after a 2019 order of this Court, his application was rejected on grounds that are, as we shall presently see, entirely untenable.

2. The Petitioner holds a D.Ed., a B.A. and B.Ed. in English. On 26th September 1995, he was appointed as a teacher at Khed Bhose following the criteria prescribed by the Zilla Parishad, Solapur. In 2001, he was transferred to the Zilla Parishad School in Malshiras, Bhamb Taluka, District Solapur. Two years later, in 2003 he was transferred to the Zilla Parishad School at Hanuman Nagar, Kacharewadi and in 2006 to the Adarsh Kanyashala in Malshiras. In 2011, he was promoted to the post of a graduate teacher at the Zilla Parishad School in Karande. He had thus worked for a total of 21 years and, he says, there was no blemish on his record until then.

3. While he was an Assistant Teacher at Hanuman Nagar, the Petitioner’s mother was detected with a gastric medical issue. She was admitted to hospital in Pune for treatment. There, it was found that she was suffering from cancer. Treatment began in 2004. The Petitioner bore the expenses of this medical treatment, and the costs were significant: about Rs.1,15,160/- according to the Petitioner. The Petitioner submitted the medical bills for this treatment to the Education Officer through the authorities concerned, seeking reimbursement. That claim for reimbursement was partly allowed to the amount of Rs.94,494/-. The claim was supported by medical bills and was submitted following the prescribed procedure and in accordance with the Rules.

4. It seems that other persons had made submissions of medical bills which were irregular or fraudulent. Three or four years later, in 2008, the Solapur Zilla Parishad and its officers including the Divisional Education Officer and the Block Development Officer began threatening teachers with recovery, and this included the Petitioner. Some of the other teachers, realising that they had no case, made the repayment. The Petitioner refused because he had submitted his mother’s medical bills and maintained even then, as he does now, that the submission and the reimbursement were entirely proper, justified and according to law. Even up to 2021, there is no case