The central legal point established in the judgment is that withholding of retiral dues requires a valid proceeding under the relevant pension rules, and reprehensible conduct may impact the petitioner's entitlement to interest.

1. The petitioner is a retired clerk from the Government Polytechnic College, Purnea. The respondent authorities have withheld payment of the amounts in lieu of his unutilised leave (Rs. 59,336) and gratuity (Rs. 84,447) on grounds that (i) there are government dues against him amounting to Rs. 2,23,057/- and he continues to be in unauthorised occupation of a government quarter allotted to him during his service tenure. The petitioner admits that he occupies the government quarter till date but he denies any government dues and on his behalf it is submitted that in any event no deduction/recovery can be made from his retiral dues in the absence of any departmental or judicial proceeding against him while he was in service or any proceeding under rule 43(b) of the Bihar Pension Rules after his retirement.

2. The petitioner retired from service on 31.1.1998. As there was some delay in payment of his retiral dues he came to this court in C.W.J.C. No. 9670 of 1999. That writ petition was disposed of by order dated 5.11.1999 in terms of the directions earlier issued by the court in the case of Rukmani Devi, 1996(2) P.L.J.R. 348.

3. In the counter affidavit filed by the respondents in this case it is stated that apart from leave encashment and gratuity all other retiral dues of the petitioner were paid to him even before the court passed the order in the earlier case.

4. When no further payments were made to him, the petitioner filed a contempt petition (being M.J.C. No. 847 of 2000) against the concerned respondents. In the show cause filed by the Principal of the Polytechnic in the contempt case it was brought to the notice of the court that books in very large number were missing from the that institutions library, during the period it was in the charge of the petitioner; the missing books were valued at Rs. 2,18,064/-. Apart from the books, materials from the store worth Rs. 3,826/- were also missing. Further, a sum of Rs. 1,167/- given to the petitioner as development advance also remained unadjusted. Thus a sum of Rs. 2,23,057/- remained due against the petitioner for adjustment/recovery of which he was given show cause notices. Copies of certain office orders and the show cause notices issued to the petitioner were made annexures to the show cause filed in this case.

5. The contempt petition was disposed of by order dated 8.1.2002 leaving it for the petitioner to seek redressal of his grievances before an appropriate authority/ forum. Against this order, the petitioner filed L.P.A. No. 251 of 2002 which he was permitted to withdraw "to pursue the other remedy available in law".

6. This writ petition was then filed challenging the show cause notices issued to him for adjustment/recovery of the gov- ernment dues from his retiral dues and for a direction to the concerned authorities to pay him the amounts of gratuity and unutilised leave, amounting to Rs. 1,44,183/- alongwith interest @ 9% per annum till the date of payment.

7. In the counter affidavit filed by the Principal of the Polytechnic, it is stated that by order no. 69 dated 31.1.1991, the petitioner was asked to hand over full charge of the library to one Shri Rajendra Prasad Yadav. Later, Shri Yadav informed the Principal that the petitioner had not handed over to him full charge of library. The Principal then asked clarification from the petitioner by letter no. 102, dated 19.3.1993. When the petitioner did not respond to the repeated letters issued by the Principal, he wrote to the Director, Science and Technology, Bihar vide letter no. 254, dated 15.6.1994 recommending that the petitioner be put under suspension. No action was, however, taken and the petitioner was allowed to continue till his superannuation on 31.1.1998. After superannuation the Principal asked him by letter no. 296, dated 2.7.1998 to submit No" Dues Certificate alongwith the relevant papers so that advice for payment of gratuity and pension to him may be forwarded to the Accountant Genera