Government employees utilizing LTC must adhere to authorized booking channels; fraudulent claims involving inflated fares from unauthorized agents constitute misappropriation of public funds, justifying recovery of the principal amount, although penal interest may be waived.

ORDER

BY JUSTICE AKHIL KUMAR SRIVASTAVA, JM;

1.By way of filing the instant original application, the applicants are challenging the order dated 18.08.2023 and 28.08.2023, whereby recovery has been imposed against the applicants with penal interest without considering the DOPT O.M. dated 19.02.2020.

2. The brief facts of the case is that applicants are working under the respondent No.2 on their respective posts. The inconvenience caused by the officers in obtaining air ticket is well within the knowledge of the Ministry of the Personnel and Public Grievance and Pension (DOPT), therefore, the Government of India has issued OM * dated 23.09.2015 Annexure-A/10, whereby it has been observed that the Government employees are required to book Air Tickets from the authorized agents, booking counter or website of airlines. The O.M. dated 23.09.2015 also advised all the Ministries/Departments to ensure a wide circulation of the guidelines among the staff. However, due to absence of M/s. Ashok Travels and M/s Balmer Lawrie Co. in Bhopal and the employees being not aware about the aforesaid guidelines, they purchased tickets from other agencies for availing LTC journey during 2014-15 (i.e. more than one year before the guidelines were issued). The above DOPT guidelines also mentions about relaxation in obtaining LTC tickets only from the authorized agent/agency.

2.1 The respondent department has issued notices to the applicants in the year 2015 raising objection about their Air Tickets, whereby recovery was proposed against the applicants. After receiving the note dated 07.10.2015 and 28.11.2015, the applicants preferred representations, whereby they lodged their protest and requested that the office of the authorized agent of M/s Ashok Tour and Travels, Delhi/Balmer-Lorries are not available at Bhopal, therefore, they were compelled to take ticket from other agents. The applicants after » availing the LTC advance undertook the journey by Air India and also produced Boarding Pass of the Air Travels to the Office of the IISS. They also mentioned that the LTC-80 fare as prescribed by the government remains the same irrespective of the source of purchase of air tickets. They also requested that the fares claimed by them are within the LTC 80 fare and in case the fares claimed exceeds the LTC fares, the extra amount may be restricted. However, all of a sudden, they further issued identical notice dated 04.02.2016 (Annexure-A/6) to all the applicants wherein it was alleged that the applicants have not obtained tickets from the authorized agents as per the ICAR/Government of India instructions, therefore, the advance amount which they have obtained towards LTC claim will be recovered. Feeling aggrieved with the note dated 04.02.2016, the applicant have preferred representations on 09.02.2016, whereby, they have lodged their protest. However, no heed has been paid towards the grievance of the applicants. Even the decision upon their representations have not yet been communicated to the applicants. The respondents have directly started making recovery from the salary of the applicant from the month of February, 2016. Feeling aggrieved with the impugned recovery the applicants filed an original application jointly as OA No. 348/2016. During pendency of the O.A., e DOPT has issued an Office Memorandum dated 19.02.2020 “(Annexure A/18) whereby clarification has been issued regarding ‘relaxation for the purposing tickets from authorized travel agents. This Tribunal was pleased to dispose of the Original Application vide order dated 28 July 2022 Annexure A