After a decade-long legal battle,the widow of a government employee has managed to get her husband's dismissal from service quashed by the Supreme Court. Bhrigu Ashram Prasad,working as an Assistant in the Bihar School Examination Board,was sacked in 1992 after a judicial magistrate convicted and sentenced him to two years RI for alleged manipulation of students' marksheets. Prasad challenged his conviction in the sessions court but during pendency of the appeal,he died in 1998,after which his wife Basanti pursued the legal battle. In 2005,the sessions court acquitted Prasad,after which Basanti filed an appeal in the Patna High Court seeking direction to the authorities to settle all arrears due to the deceased til his original period of superannuation since his conviction had been set aside. A single judge dismissed her plea on the ground that the petition cannot be entertained after such a long period as the court was of the view that Prasad,when he was alive,should have challenged his termination in 1992 itself. Basanti moved a division bench which agreed with the view of the single judge,following which she moved the apex court. Upholding Basant's plea,the apex court said in normal circumstances,such stale pleas could not have been entertained. But in a case where the petitioner is able to give convincing reasons for the delay then courts are bound to give relief to the petitioner. A bench of Justices Tarun Chatterjee and H L Dattu has,however,ruled that the widow would not be entitled to the back wages but only pension due to the deceased. The apex court pointed out that the termination order could not have been challenged either by Prasad when he was alive or by his widow till 2005 as the criminal appeal was pending in the sessions court. The dismissal was in view of the order of conviction passed by the magistrate and till that order is set aside by a superior forum,the appellant's husband or the appellant could not have questioned the same till he was acquitted by the sessions court. In view of these peculiar circumstances,in our view the high court was not justified in rejecting the prayer of the apellant primarily on the ground of delay, the apex court observed while quashing the termination order of the deceased.
