NT Reporter
Panaji
The High Court of Bombay at Goa has ruled that subsistence allowance paid to a suspended employee is a right, not a bounty, and ordered the Public Works Department (PWD) to pay the pending dues.
The court was hearing a petition filed by Shankar Chandrakant Gawas of Coparde, Sattari, who sought directions to respondent officers — the Principal Chief Engineer and the Executive Engineer, Division XXIV (PHE), PWD, Bicholim —to pay him subsistence allowance, dearness allowance, and other compensatory allowances with 10 per cent annual interest from February 19, 2016, the date of
his suspension.
Gawas, appointed as a lower division clerk on March 13, 2007, was posted at Division XXIV, PWD, Bicholim in 2012 and later given cashier duties in 2013. A police complaint for alleged misappropriation was filed against him on October 16, 2015. The court said that no justifiable reason had been provided for non-payment of subsistence
allowance during the suspension period, and ruled that the petitioner is entitled to the same.
