In Perspective:

A retired employee complains that he is not paid the gratuity in full; first, he receives some amount, later complains he must be paid more amount; then, the employer pays some more. Yet, the employee gripes that still some more remains. In this process about four years lapses. Finally, he petitions the Lok Ayukta. Both the Payment of Gratuity Act and the Lok Ayukta Act provide remedies, but in different time frames. The petitioner does not invoke the Payment of Gratuity Act, for it seems to have been barred by time. So he stakes his claim under the Kerala Lok Ayukta Act, which seems to have not shut the doors. In this context, the issues are these:

(1) Are these two enactments mutually exclusive or, differently put, does the Payment of Gratuity Act, a special act, prevail over the Kerala Lok Ayukat Act, a general one, given a conflict?

(2) Is there an element of repugnancy between the Payment of Gratuity Act, a central enactment, and the Kerala Lok Ayukta Act, the state enactment?

(3) Has the petitioner's claim, as held by the Lok Ayukta, barred by limitation?

Facts in Brief:

2. The petitioner, after serving the second respondent Bank for 32 years, retired on 30.6.2001. Though he received the terminal benefits, he claims that the respondent bank paid only a part of the gratuity, in two instalments--on 26.7.2001 and 26.7.2004. He thus claims that the respondent bank still owes him Rs. 43,878 and interest at 10% amounting to Rs. 27801--the total coming to Rs. 71,679.

3. Ventilating his grievance that the respondent Bank, his former employer, should pay the balance gratuity amount along with interest, the petitioner applied before the Lok Ayukta, the second respondent. Later, the Lok Ayukta rendered the Ext.P11 order in which certain other retired employees' claims were also considered. The learned Lok Ayukta, in fact, dismissed the petitioner's claim because it was said to have been barred by limitation. Aggrieved, the petitioner has filed this writ petition.

4. The learned counsel for the petitioner has submitted that the respondent bank initially paid part of the gratuity amount in 2001 and, later, the balance in 2004--to be precise on 26.7.2004. Only then did the petitioner realise that the respondent bank had not intended to pay, what the petitioner feels, the full amount. In other words, the employer did not consider the petitioner's entire service of 32 years. He has also submitted that the total number of days to be reckoned was 480 days, and the petitioner's last drawn pay was Rs. 40,626. So the petitioner would be entitled to Rs. 2,68,268/-, rather than Rs. 2,19,319/-, the amount the bank paid.

5. On limitation, the learned counsel contends that the Lok Ayukta having decided other cases in a common order may have been influenced by the inordinate delay in those cases. In this case, since the delay, if any, was well within five years, the petitioner's application before the Lok Ayukta, according to him, was eminently maintainable. And Ext.P11 order, therefore, suffers from a jurisdictional error which needs to be interfered with and rectified by this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.

6. Per contra, the learned counsel for the respondent bank submitted that the petitioner has an efficacious remedy available under the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972. Taking me through the Act, the learned counsel would contend that clauses (a) (b) and (c) of Section 7(4) delineate the procedure and the authority to be approached if any employee has a grievance about the gratuity to be paid to him. In elaboration, he has also submitted that under Rule 10(3) of the Payment of Gratuity (Central Rules) 1972, the applicant ought to have approached the authority concerned within 90 days.

7. The learned counsel for the respondent bank strenuously contends that the petitioner had approached the Lok Ayukta only because his remedy under the Payment of Gratuity Act, a special enactment, stood hopelessly barred by lim