Annual increments come 14 years after retirement

Almost 14 years after he retired, a 73-year-old man is all set to receive the annual increments which he was supposed to have been paid during his 39-year service in the Highways Department. An order to this effect has been passed by the Madras High Court.

Justice D. Hariparanthaman directed the Chief Engineer of the Highways Department and the Director of Rural Development Department to take appropriate action for getting annual increments for petitioner K. Velappan for his entire service within 12 weeks and he shall be paid the arrears accordingly.

The petitioner joined the Department as Road Inspector on November 15, 1961 and his service was regularised from January 14, 1965. However, he was not sanctioned annual increments from the day he joined service to December 21, 1988 in view of the delay in the orders of regularisation issued to him.

Till the day he retired from service as Junior Engineer on August 31, 2000, he was not sanctioned even a single increment except the minimum scale of pay in the respective posts.

Even after 14 years of retirement, the petitioner was being paid a sum of Rs. 2,750 as provision pension.