GURGAON: The Punjab and
Haryana
high court ordered quashing of charges against a retired DHBVN executive engineer and upheld a lower court’s 2014 ruling that directed the
discom
to pay increments it had halted as a penalty. The case dates to 2005 when DS Hooda, then an sub-divisional officer in
Dharuhera
, was accused of causing financial loss to the discom by restoring power connection to a company that paid around Rs 53,000 of its total pending electricity bill of Rs 2 lakh.
The discom framed charges against Hooda in 2006.
In 2008, the discom ordered two increments that Hooda was supposed to get be halted, and Rs 1.3 lakh be recovered from him. In a Nov 2014 ruling, a Gurgaon additional district judge said that Hooda was entitled to get back his increments along with interest at 9% per annum.
DHBVN challenged this 2014 order before the high court, alleging that Hooda retired as an executive engineer in Feb 2011 and during his service, he was charge-sheeted in April 2006, which led to the stoppage of his two increments. Justice Suvir Sehgal of the
Punjab and Haryana HC
, in his order on Aug 6, upheld the district court’s ruling. “The court does not find any illegality or infirmity in the judgment passed by the district court,” the order read.
