The Rajasthan High Court has set aside an order of the State that stopped and forfeited petitioner's entire pension on the ground of a conviction and imprisonment under the Prevention of Corruption Act (“the Act”), in the background of the fact that no notice was serviced upon the petition before passing of the order.

The bench of Justice Anand Sharma affirmed that even where conviction stood proven, petitioner had the right to put forth mitigating circumstances before the concerned authority for consideration regarding the nature and extent of penalty.

For context, the petitioner had retired as an Assistant Accounts Officer of the Rajasthan State Road Transport Corporation in 2023. An FIR was filed against him in 2011 under the Act, and disciplinary proceedings were also initiated against him in this regard. Both the criminal case and the departmental enquiry were pending on the date of his retirement.

Hence, while retiring, he was granted provisional pension and 50% gratuity. Eventually, he got convicted in the criminal case. Based on this order of conviction, an order was passed by the respondent-department that the petitioner was not entitled to pension. Hence, the present petition was filed.

It was argued by the petitioner that the order violated Regulation 4 of the Rajasthan State Road Transport Corporation Employees' Pension Regulations, 1989 (“Regulations”) as per which serving notice upon the petitioner was mandatory before passing the judgment.

Regulation 4 empowered the authority to impose penalty of discontinuing pension, where pensioner was convicted for committing a serious crime.

On the contrary, the respondents raised a preliminary objection that without exhausting alternative remedy, the petitioner had approached the Court directly, hence the petition was not maintainable.

After hearing the contentions, the Court firstly held that the principle behind the objection raised by the respondent was not a strict rule and did not prohibit entertaining writ in some cases, especially where the order suffered from violation of principles of natural justice.

Furthermore, the Court held that the procedure under Regulation 4 was not complied with in its true spirit since no notice was served upon the petitioner.

Reference was made to the case of Ramjilal Jangid Vs. RSRTC & Ors. in which the Court dealt with identical facts, and ruled that,

“…pension is not a bounty but a valuable statutory right earned by an employee after rendering long years of service. Any order resulting in deprivation or permanent withholding of pension undoubtedly entails serious civil consequences. Therefore, unless specifically excluded by the statute, compliance of principles of natural justice is implicit before passing such an adverse order…Even where conviction stands proved, the petitioner still had a valuable right to place mitigating circumstances before the authority for consideration regarding the nature and extent of penalty proposed under Regulation 4.”

Accordingly, the Court set aside the order and remanded the matter to the Department to be considered afresh after issuing show cause notice to the petitioner and affording reasonable opportunity of hearing.

The Court directed that till the passing of the fresh order, the respondent shall restore and continue payment of pension to the petitioner as per law.

Title: Rohitash Meena v Rajasthan State Road Transport Corporation & Ors.

Citation: 2026 LiveLaw (Raj) 391

For petitioner: Mr. Tanmay Dhand; Mr. Suraj K. Dixit

For Respondent: Mr. Kapil Sharma

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