University of Delhi vs Shashi Kiran

Judicial Analysis Court Copy Headnote Facts Arguments Court observation

2022 Supreme(SC) 438

SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
Uday Umesh Lalit, Vineet Saran, JJ.
University of Delhi – Appellant
Versus
Smt. Shashi Kiran & Ors. Etc. – Respondents
Civil Appeal No. 3797-3809 of 2022 (Arising out of Special Leave Petition (Civil) Nos. of 2022) (Arising out of Diary No. 13901 of 2017)
With
University of Delhi – Appellant
Versus
C.L. Khanna (Retd.) & Ors. – Respondents
Civil Appeal No. of 2022 (Arising out of Special Leave Petition (Civil) Nos. of 2022) (Arising out of Diary No. 36222 of 2018)
With
University of Delhi – Appellant
Versus
Dr. S.N. Singh – Respondent
Civil Appeal No. of 2022 (Arising out of Special Leave Petition (Civil) Nos. of 2022) (Arising out of Diary No. 36221 of 2018)
With
University of Delhi – Appellant
Versus
Dr. Santosh Kaur Sangari & Ors. – Respondents
Civil Appeal No. of 2022 (Arising out of Special Leave Petition (Civil) No.29577 of 2018)
And With
University of Delhi – Appellants
Versus
N.C. Bakshi & Ors. Etc. – Respondents
Civil Appeal No. of 2022 (Arising out of Special Leave Petition (Civil) Nos. of 2022) (Arising out of Diary No.17007 of 2017)
Decided On : 10-05-2022

Advocate Appeared:
Mohinder Jit Singh, Aman Sinha, Sanjai Kumar Pathak, Arvind Kumar Tripathi, Nupoor Sinha, Shashi Pathak, K.K. Rai, Shiv Kumar Pandey, Sreoshi Chatterjee, Chandrashekhar A. Chakalabbi, Awanish Kumar, Anshul Rai, Abhinav Garg, D. Girish Kumar, Kumar Vinayakam Gupta, Vikas Kumar, Manish Paliwal Devmani Bansal, Ajay Monga, Himanshu Menghani, Satyajit S. Desai, Satyakam Sharma, Siddharth Gautam, Anagha S. Desai, Tanuj Khurana, Anjali Chauhan, Nar Hari Singh, Swetank Shantanu, Ankit Kumar, Ravi S. Chauhan, Shefali Jain, Rajesh Prasad Singh, Sujeeta Srivastava, Arjun Harkauli, Aditya Ranjan, Satpal Singh, D. S. Chauhan, Rahul Pratap, Gurmeet Singh Makker, Rameshwar Prasad Goyal, Romy Chacko, Arvind Kumar Gupta, Vikas Mehta, Jagjit Singh Chhabra, Santosh Kumar - I, Mayank Goel, M/s. UNUC Legal LLP, Advocates

Headnote:(A) Relevant provisions - Office Memorandum dated 01.05.1987, relevant regulations on provident and pension schemes. The judgment discusses the scheme's impact on опtions given to university employees regarding their provident and pension schemes. (Paras 2, 4, 13, 20)

(B) Legal principles - Employees must opt for either CPF or GPF; failure to opt results in being deemed members of the latter. Positive option exercised is final. (Paras 6, 10, 20)

(C)

Facts of the case:
The University of Delhi's employee petitions regarding retirement benefits led to diverse interpretations of their options concerning CPF and GPF schemes, per Government regulations. (Paras 3-4, 13)

(D)

Findings of Court:
The Supreme Court determined that employees who did not express an option for CPF by the cut-off date were automatically deemed to have opted for GPF. The principle of equality applied to allowed extensions for others. (Paras 20, 22-24) (E)

Issues: Interpretation of the Office Memorandum, validity of extensions granted for option switchovers, and discrimination concerns among different employee batches. (Paras 11-15, 21) (F)

Ratio Decidendi: The court held that the provisions of the Office Memorandum provided a legal fiction that non-expressing employees were covered by GPF, and extensions without authority were invalid. Fair equal treatment to employees permitted options must not result from mere administrative lapses. (Paras 10, 22) (G)

Result: Appeals partially allowed; the court directed recoupment of CPF contributions with interest, and provided that employees not switching to GPF must be given options appropriately. (Paras 26)

Table of Content
1. factual basis for appeals by university of delhi. (Para 2 , 3)
2. context of extended options under cpf and gpf. (Para 4)
3. arguments regarding option exercise and employee choices. (Para 5 , 10)
4. court's analysis of extensions and options. (Para 11 , 12 , 20)
5. equitable considerations regarding employee switches. (Para 21 , 22)
6. final decision on appeals with remittance directions. (Para 26)

JUDGMENT :

Uday Umesh Lalit, J.

Delay condoned. Leave granted.

2. These appeals by the University of Delhi ('the University', for short) are directed against the judgment and order dated 24.08.2016 passed by the Division Bench of High Court of Delhi at New Delhi in Letters Patent Appeals¹[LPA Nos. 410-414, 416-418, 558, 594, 667, 672 and 780 of 2014; 554, 606, 607, 608, 609, 610, 615, 616, 617, 618, 619, 622, 623, 624, 625, 626, 627, 628, 629, 632, 633, 635, 636, 637, 638, 639, 640, 641, 642, 643, 644, 645, 646, 647, 648, 650, 651, 653, 654, 655 of 2014 and other connected appeals] which in turn had challenged the decisions of the learned Single Judge of the High Court dated 30.04.2014 in various Writ Petitions²[Writ Petition No. 1490 of 2006 and connected matters, Writ Petition(C) Nos. 5631 of 2010,1216 of 2011, 3631 of 2011, 3863 of 2011, 5495 of 2011, W.P.(C)No. 6009 of 2011 & CM No. 12140 of 2011, W.P.(C)No. 5106 of 2011 & CM No. 10351 of 2011, W.P.(C)No. 5975 of 2010 & CM No. 11775 of 2010, W.P.(C)No. 5979 of 2010 & CM No. 11782 of 2010, W.P.(C)No. 5980 of 2010 & CM No. 11784 of 2010, W.P.(C)No. 5981 of 2010, W.P.(C)No. 5982 of 2010 & CM No. 11787 of 2010, W.P.(C)No. 5985 of 2010 & CM No. 11793 of 2010; W.P.(C)No. 2036 of 2010, W.P.(C)No. 2037 of 2010, W.P.(C)No. 3095 of 2010 & CM No. 7718 of 2011, W.P.(C)No. 5759 of 2010, W.P.(C)No. 7310 of 2010 and W.P.(C)No. 8560 of 2010.]

3. The basic facts leading to the filing of the Writ Petitions in the High Court are as under:

a. All the writ petitioners are members of the teaching staff working in various colleges and institutions which are either affiliated to, or are part of the University. The conditions of service of the teaching staff are somewhat analogous to the employees of the Central Government.

b. On 06.06.1985, the Central Government employees who were governed by the Contributory Provident Fund (for short, "CPF") were permitted to opt for General Provident Fund and Pension Scheme (for short, "GPF"). Thereafter a notification was issued by the Central Government with respect to the changeover of the employees from CPF to GPF. Said notification issued on 1.5.1987 contemplated that all CPF beneficiaries who were in service on 01.01.1986 and were still in service would be deemed to have "come over" to GPF unless a contrary option was exercised by them in writing by 30.09.1987 to continue to be under CPF. The relevant paragraphs of said notification were:

"The Central Government employees who are governed by the Contributory Provident Fund Scheme (CPF Scheme) have been given repeated options in the past to come over to the Pension Scheme. The last such option was given in the Department of Personnel and Training. O.M. No. F 3 (1) - Pension Unit/85, dated the 6" June, 1985. However, some Central Government employees still continue under the CPF Scheme. The Fourth Central Pay Commission has recommended that all CPF beneficiaries in service on January 1, 1986, should be deemed to have come over to the Pension Scheme on that date unless they specifically opt out to continue under the CPF Scheme.

2. After careful consideration, it has been decided that the said recommendation shall be accepted and implemented in the manner hereinafter indicated.

3.1 All CPF beneficiaries, who were in service on 1st January, 1986, and who are still in service on the date of issue of these orders viz., 1st May, 1987) will be deemed to have come over to the Pension Scheme.

3.2 The employees of the category mentioned above will, however, have an option to continue under the CPF Scheme, if they so