Orissa High Court

Cuttack, Jan. 5: A 54-year-old physically-challenged teacher of Palasbani Sevashrama in Mayurbhanj district can finally hope to get his service benefits as Orissa High Court has intervened in the case. For the past 23 years, Bijay Kumar Das has been running from pillar to post to get his due but to no avail.

Das, who became physically-challenged after polio struck him, has put in nearly 30 years of service at Sevashramas run by the scheduled caste and scheduled tribe development department. But he is yet to get pay fixation, increment or promotion as his service book went missing in 1987 when it was sent to Bhalulata Secondary Training School in Sundargarh district, where he was sent for training.

The high court yesterday set January 10 as the date for the district welfare officer of Sundargarh district and the headmaster of the training school to appear before the court and explain the matter of the missing service book.

The plight of teacher Das was communicated to Justice B.P. Das through a letter petition by advocate Prabir Kumar Das, a human rights activist and member of the High Court Bar. “The teacher’s family, comprising his wife and two children, has been suffering because of the meagre salary given to him which is grossly inadequate to meet family expenses. The family is starving and this amounts to violation of the right to life,” the letter petition had alleged.

The letter petition was converted into a writ petition and taken up for hearing on December 22 last. The court had on that day asked the government counsel to take instructions from the government and fixed January 4 for next hearing on the case.

Das was present in court when the case came up for hearing yesterday. But the government counsel could not explain the plight of the teacher because of the missing service book except for saying that the collector concerned had been asked to look into the matter.

The two-judge bench of Justice B.P. Das and Justice Sanju Panda were dissatisfied with the government counsel’s reply and asked for the district welfare officer of Sundargarh district and the headmaster of Bhalulata Secondary Training School, where the service book in question was sent when Das underwent training there, to appear before the court. “The bench also asked the authorities concerned to provide service benefits to the teacher on the basis of duplicate service book and other available records,” advocate Das said.

Bijay Kumar Das, who is at present serving at Palasbani Sevashrama in Saraskana block of Mayurbhanj, had joined as “sevak” in 1980. He was relieved on July 9, 1987, to enable him to undergo C.T. training at Bhalulata Secondary Training School in Sundargarh district. After completing training (1987-89), he was posted in Mayurbhanj district.

After submitting his joining report before the district welfare officer Mayurbhanj on June 2, 1989, he has served in various Sevashrams at Satkosia, Bakartala and Ghugi before being posted at Palasbani Sevashram.

Das has been deprived of pay fixation, increment, promotion etc. because his original service book (which was sent to Bhalulata Secondary Training School in Sundargarh district in 1987-89) cannot be found.