The order was passed on Thursday in response to a letter by Nirmala Samal, wife of the retired principal of DAV College, Nirakarpur, Bhaskar Chandra Samal to the Chief Justice. The letter was treated as a public interest litigation.

Expressing displeasure over non-compliance of its earlier orders, a division bench of the High Court comprising Justices Arijit Pasayat and P C Naik ruled that stringent action be taken against the concerned authorities for repeatedly violating court orders.

It directed that no payment to any member of the directorate of Higher Education be made till the court gets definite information about payment of provisional pension to the petitioner's husband, and ordered that the arrears and provisional pension be cleared by December 8.

Adjourning the case for further hearing to December8, the bench directed the Director of Higher Education and the principal to attend court on that day.

The principal was also asked to submit records to the counsel for the State. An official source said that the Controller of Accounts had despatched the pension payment order (PPO) to the treasury officer of Nayagarh district on November 28 following the High Court directive.

The source added that the principal's gratuity and pensionary benefits were held up on technical grounds -- Samal's service record is yet to be regularised due to his unauthorised absence for seven-and-a-half months.

The court had passed two interim orders on August 28 and September 18 directing the department to clear the retired principal's dues.

Meanwhile, three directorate officials visited Nayagarh to expedite the payment of provisional pension. However, Samal is said to have refused to accept pension unless his gratuity was cleared first.