ahmedabad it took a threedecade legal battle for a bus conductor and his family to reclaim lost salary and pension that had been deducted as punishment for issuing three used tickets to passengers for a meagre rs 6 this case involved mulji parmar a bus conductor with the gujarat state road and transport corporation gsrtc on june 2 1990 when an inspection squad checked a bus between bhavnagar and dhundsar it found that the conductor had issued three used tickets worth rs 250 to three passengers travelling from bhavnagar to shihor and charged them rs 6 the inspection squad recorded the passengers and the conductors statements and reported the incident to the authorities considering the seriousness of the charge the department began an inquiry the charge was proved and in january 1993 parmar was handed down a penalty of stoppage of three increments he unsuccessfully challenged this penalty before the divisional controller where his defence was that the used tickets had been issued by mistakeparmar approached an industrial disputes tribunal in bhavnagar in 1997 which held that the departmental inquiry was not just and proper and quashed it it ordered gsrtc to pay the conductor his dues in 2012 gsrtc moved the hc arguing that the conductor took four years to approach the tribunal and his complaint was thus barred by the law of limitation the hc refused to accept the argument and said it cannot be denied that the stoppage of increments is affecting the employee and his family and it always remains a live issue and it cannot be said to be a stale claim it also said that if an employee came up with such a complaint after a decade or two it could be said to be a stale claim the hc rejected gsrtcs petition and ordered it to calculate the reduction caused by the stopped increments during his service and consequently in the family pension and to pay the sum to his widow as the conductor died while the litigation was pending the familys lawyer p c chaudhari said