The legal principle established in the judgment is that the jural relationship of the employee and the employer does not come to an end unless the employee is relieved of duty after acceptance of the offer of voluntary retirement or resignation.

B.S. Walia, J.

Petitioners invoked the jurisdiction of this Court on 25.03.2010 praying for the issuance of a writ of Certiorari for quashing order Annexure 'A' dated 09.03.2010 wherein it had been mentioned that the petitioners would be treated as retired from service w.e.f. 31.03.2010 as also for the issuance of a writ of Mandamus commanding the respondents to allow the petitioners to continue in-service till their attaining the age of superannuation uninfluenced by order Annexure 'A' dated 09.03.2010 passed by respondent No. 4 as also to confer all consequential/service benefits to the petitioners by ignoring order Annexure 'A' dated 09.03.2010 as also Mandamus commanding the respondents to produce the record wherein petitioners were alleged to have made a request for voluntary retirement and to declare the same as fraudulent, null and void, writ of Prohibition for restraining the respondents from retiring the petitioners w.e.f. 31st of March 2010 etc. The aforementioned writ petition was taken up for hearing on 26.03.2010 on which date while issuing notice and subject to objections from the other side, operation of impugned order was stayed till the next date of hearing.

2. Main plea of the petitioners was of their not having made any request at any point of time for their premature retirement and of there being a hidden agenda of the government in the passing of the impugned order Annexure 'A' dated 9th of March 2010 as evident from the speech of the Minister for P.H.E., i.e. Annexure 'B' published in newspaper dated 23.03.2010 which revealed that steps for forced and voluntary retirement had been taken to clear the mess/scandals in the department as also to create job avenues for unemployed youth and for which the office of respondent No. 4 had prepared Bio-Data i.e. Annexure 'C' of employees for their premature retirement mentioning therein the name of the official with parentage, designation, date of birth, date of appointment on daily wages R/Temp., basis as also actual date of retirement.

3. Petitioners have also averred that they were holding class IV posts against meagre remuneration and that their families were dependent for their bread and butter on the earnings of the petitioners, that on coming to know about the impugned order Annexure 'A' dated 09.03.2010, the petitioners had made a joint representation Annexure 'D' and 'E' dated 16.03.2010 to respondent Nos., 1 and 2 denying of ever having made a request for premature retirement and mentioning therein of their having been allured and enticed by the dealing hands as well as then Minister for Public Health Engineering Department on his visit to District Poonch in May 2009 that they would be given extra incentives for overwork provided they submitted a representation, however on account of lack of education the petitioners were duped into signing blank paper by the officials with the assurance that their case would be processed for incentives and perks, that the petitioners were shocked on learning of a communication from the Executive Engineer, PHE Division Poonch to Assistant Executive Engineer, Poonch Division intimating decision to treat the petitioners as retired w.e.f. 31.03.2010, that the petitioners had never made any request for premature retirement and that if any such request had been received, the same be treated as not genuine and voluntary as their signatures had been obtained for processing their cases for incentives/overtime work and the said signatures had been misused by the respondents, that in the circumstances the petitioners be allowed to continue in-service till their attaining the age of superannuation.

4. Challenge to impugned order Annexure 'A' dated 9th of March 2010 was inter-alia on the ground of the same being in violation of the principles of Natural Justice, of the petitioners having made detailed representation Annexure 'D' and 'E' dated 16th March 2010 denying their having made a request for voluntary retirement consequent