Raiganj (North Dinajpur), Dec. 28: A government employee cleared of murder charges by the Supreme Court 13 years ago was allowed to return to work only on Friday, six days before he would retire.

Ramendranath Raha, a peon in the land and land reforms department, has lived on half his salary and heaps of scorn since 1980, when he was arrested and charged with a double murder.

It apparently took the state government so long to take Raha back because the department had not been able to complete an internal inquiry initiated 28 years ago.

Two of Raha’s four children committed suicide in 2003 because, he said, “they could no longer bear the humiliation and the poverty”.

In 1980, a mob had stormed Raiganj municipality vice-chairman Bhola Pal’s house and killed his brother and sister in his absence. Raha had been picked up with 15 others in connection with the murders.

After a magistrate absolved Raha of the murder charge, the police moved the high court, which also acquitted him in 1985. The police appealed the order in the apex court two years later. The petition was dismissed in 1995.

“Since then, I had been knocking at the doors of the district administration and Writers’ Buildings,” Raha said.

On December 19, a land department assistant secretary instructed a director of the department to reinstate Raha. The order reached North Dinajpur on December 26.

District magistrate Sukumar Bhattacharyya said it was the usual practice to not let an employee resume work till the internal inquiry was completed. He did not know why it took almost three decades to finish the probe.

When the nearly-60 man turned up at the district land and land reforms department office in Karnojhora on Friday morning, he was again not allowed to start work. “Raha’s papers were not ready even then. He was allowed to join after 2.30pm,” said Asim Bhowmik, leader of the Congress-affiliated employees’ union.

Raha, whose salary now is around Rs 6,000, said: “My best years are gone. I could not give my children all that I had wanted to.” He will retire on Wednesday, December 31.

The union said his arrears would add up to around Rs 15 lakh with interest.