The Calcutta High Court recently reiterated that a judgment must be fully complied with once it has attained finality..Following principles underlying the Doctrine of Election and the Doctrine of Approbate and Reprobate, a person cannot choose to comply with only a part of the judgement while rejecting the rest. Moreover, if the ruling is not challenged, it attains finality and binds the parties to whom it applies..Justice Shekhar B Saraf made these observations in a case concerning the recalculation of pension..The case has its genesis in an erroneous calculation of the petitioner’s salary to deduct pensionary amounts by government school authorities. In 2011, the High Court ruled in favour of the petitioner, and issued a two-fold direction:.refund the amount deducted from the overdrawn amount in the pension payment order with interestrecalculate the retiral dues of the petitioner considering the last drawn salary of the petitioner and issue a revised pension payment order. The arrears due to be paid to the petitioner should accompany at 8% annual interest.The first direction was complied with. However, the school authorities did not recalculate the pension until 2016. When it finally appeared before the Pension, Provident Fund and Group Insurance authority, it cited a 2015 case to refuse revision of the pension payment order..As per the 2015 case of State of West Bengal v Amalendu Sekhar Bera, revision of pension payment order cannot be made on the basis of erroneously mentioned last drawn salary..In view of this objection made by the Pension authorities, the District Inspector of Schools passed a Memorandum in December 2017, intimating that the revised pension payment order will not be issued..However, in a subsequent challenge before the Court, Justice Saraf found fault with this decision, since the school authorities had not challenged the earlier 2011 ruling which directed them to issue the revised pension payment order. Instead, they had even elected to comply with a direction passed to refund the overdrawn amount..The contrary finding by a bench of coordinate strength years later in a different case cannot be cited as an excuse to disregard a judgment which attained finality on account of it not having been challenged, the High Court held..As per Justice Saraf, estoppel principles underlying the Doctrine of Election and the Doctrine of Approbate and Reprobate would apply in cases where a judgment has become final as well. .As explained in his order,.“… the principles that emerges is that a person cannot at the same time accept and reject an instrument. Such acceptance has to be judged by his conduct and actions. If the person has chosen to accept a particular instrument and/or order, he cannot at a latter point agitate against the same instrument and/or order..Carrying the analogy further, if a person acts on a part of an order passed by a Court, he cannot choose to ignore and/or reject the other part of the order unless the same has been challenged by him under the process established in law.”.Applying these principles, the Court concluded that in the instant case, the authorities were bound to follow the 2011 High Court ruling..“The very fact that the respondent authorities did not file any appeal against the order dated April 8, 2011 lends credence to the fact that they had accepted the order and had in fact complied with part of the same. Apropos, having accepted the same, it did not lie in their mouth at a latter date to not comply with another part of the order.“.Therefore, the 2017 Memorandum was set aside. The school authorities were directed to issue the revised pension payment order within six weeks..Read the order:
The Calcutta High Court recently reiterated that a judgment must be fully complied with once it has attained finality..Following principles underlying the Doctrine of Election and the Doctrine of Approbate and Reprobate, a person cannot choose to comply with only a part of the judgement while rejecting the rest. Moreover, if the ruling is not challenged, it attains finality and binds the parties to whom it applies..Justice Shekhar B Saraf made these observations in a case concerning the recalculation of pension..The case has its genesis in an erroneous calculation of the petitioner’s salary to deduct pensionary amounts by government school authorities. In 2011, the High Court ruled in favour of the petitioner, and issued a two-fold direction:.refund the amount deducted from the overdrawn amount in the pension payment order with interestrecalculate the retiral dues of the petitioner considering the last drawn salary of the petitioner and issue a revised pension payment order. The arrears due to be paid to the petitioner should accompany at 8% annual interest.The first direction was complied with. However, the school authorities did not recalculate the pension until 2016. When it finally appeared before the Pension, Provident Fund and Group Insurance authority, it cited a 2015 case to refuse revision of the pension payment order..As per the 2015 case of State of West Bengal v Amalendu Sekhar Bera, revision of pension payment order cannot be made on the basis of erroneously mentioned last drawn salary..In view of this objection made by the Pension authorities, the District Inspector of Schools passed a Memorandum in December 2017, intimating that the revised pension payment order will not be issued..However, in a subsequent challenge before the Court, Justice Saraf found fault with this decision, since the school authorities had not challenged the earlier 2011 ruling which directed them to issue the revised pension payment order. Instead, they had even elected to comply with a direction passed to refund the overdrawn amount..The contrary finding by a bench of coordinate strength years later in a different case cannot be cited as an excuse to disregard a judgment which attained finality on account of it not having been challenged, the High Court held..As per Justice Saraf, estoppel principles underlying the Doctrine of Election and the Doctrine of Approbate and Reprobate would apply in cases where a judgment has become final as well. .As explained in his order,.“… the principles that emerges is that a person cannot at the same time accept and reject an instrument. Such acceptance has to be judged by his conduct and actions. If the person has chosen to accept a particular instrument and/or order, he cannot at a latter point agitate against the same instrument and/or order..Carrying the analogy further, if a person acts on a part of an order passed by a Court, he cannot choose to ignore and/or reject the other part of the order unless the same has been challenged by him under the process established in law.”.Applying these principles, the Court concluded that in the instant case, the authorities were bound to follow the 2011 High Court ruling..“The very fact that the respondent authorities did not file any appeal against the order dated April 8, 2011 lends credence to the fact that they had accepted the order and had in fact complied with part of the same. Apropos, having accepted the same, it did not lie in their mouth at a latter date to not comply with another part of the order.“.Therefore, the 2017 Memorandum was set aside. The school authorities were directed to issue the revised pension payment order within six weeks..Read the order:
