Following a plea by the petitioner, Kalyan Singh Rathore, that his leave was not sanctioned by the authorities and therefore the amount availed by him in advance should've been deducted from his salary, justice K. Ramamoorthy on February 16 issued notices to the Home Secretary and BSF Director General, among others to file their replies on the issue by April 16.

Rathore, in his petition, said he applied for the LTC for the block year 1990-93 and was sanctioned an advance of Rs 11,426 that was directly credited in his bank account on August 24, 1994. Since he was posted in Nagaur, he came to know of the sanction only on September 13 and therefore applied for 15 days' leave.

``Despite the fact that a leave of 267 days' earned leave and 15 days' casual leave, my leave was not sanctioned even after repeated reminders. As a result, the LTC lapsed since it is essential to have a sanctioned leave to avail of the LTC,'' he maintained.

The head of the Pay and Accounts Division (PAD) was asked by the BSF commandant to deduct the salary from his salary account, he said, adding that since he was posted in far flung areas and his salary was directly being sent to his home town, he never realised that the amount was never deducted from his account.

The same was paid to the PAD, along with a penal interest of Rs 6,165 by him last year for ``illegally'' keeping the amount with him all these years. Ideally, the matter should have ended there. Instead, he was harassed, victimised and humiliated by his superiors, who also threatened to implicate him in some case and get him court martialled, the petition alleges.

Rathore had approached the court on February 15 after he learnt that his trial in the court martial proceedings was being commenced on the same day.

Romesh Sharma case
The Delhi High Court on Friday issued a notice to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) following a petition by controversial politician Romesh Sharma challenging the dismissal of his bail plea by a city court in an extortion case.

Sharma claimed that he did not have a ``link'' with underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and had never threatened or intimidated anyone. Sharma's counsel, R.D. Rana, told Justice S.N. Kapoor that the Rs 50 lakh payment that Sharma had received by way of two cheques from an export firm was not "extortion", but were in connection with a rice deal.

Sharma is alleged to have extorted Rs 50 lakh from S.B. Sondhi of Lucky Exports in connection with a property at West End in south Delhi, owned by Saloni Walia and Malkiat Singh. The Crime Branch of the Delhi Police had claimed documents, showing payment of the money through two cheques of Rs 18 and Rs 32 lakh, were recovered from Sharma's premises.