IMPORTANT POINT
Pension – Work Charged Employees – Denying of pension after rendering service as work charged for number of years on the ground that they have not completed qualifying service can be said to be unfair and illegal and can be said to be exploitation.

JUDGMENT :

M.R. Shah, J.

1. Feeling aggrieved and dissatisfied with the impugned judgment(s) and order(s) passed by the High Court of judicature at Patna in respective letters patent appeals, the respective original writ petitioners – work charged employees, whose services were subsequently regularized as per the Work Charged Establishment Revised Service Conditions (Repealing) Rules, 2013 (hereinafter referred to as “Rules, 2013”), have preferred the present appeals.

2. For the sake of convenience, Civil Appeal Nos. 3158-3159 of 2023 (Maheshwar Pandey Vs. State of Bihar and Ors.) is being treated as the lead matter.

2.1 The issue involved in the present appeals is with respect to the counting of the period of work charged services for the purpose of computing pensionary benefits and the length of pensionable service.

2.2 A Larger Bench of the High Court by the impugned judgment and order while upholding Rule 5(v) of the Rules, 2013 has held that the period spent in the work charged establishment would be counted only to the extent of the shortfall in the qualifying period of service for grant of pension, which shall be made up by adding that period spent under the work charged establishment and that the entire period spent under the work charged establishment would not be taken into account.

2.3 The respective original writ petitioners were initially appointed and working under the work charged establishment as work charged. The State Government came out with the Rules from time to time to regularize the services of the work charged employees and also how the work charged services to be counted / considered. Lastly, the State Government framed the Rules, 2013, under which the services of the original writ petitioners came to be regularized.

2.4 One of the clauses, namely, Clause 5(v) provided that old pension scheme will be applicable on these personnel. It further provided that granting the pension and gratuity benefits will be calculated with the recognition of regular service of one year for the work charged service of every five years and in spite of this, if the minimum pension paid service is not completed for pension acceptance under the old pension, the benefit of the pension will be given by adding minimum service to that extent.

2.5 Though the original writ petitioners were held to be entitled to the pension by taking into account the services rendered as work charged for the purpose of qualifying period of service for grant of pension, they challenged Rule 5(v) of the Rules, 2013 to the extent it provided that for the purpose of counting of pension, regular service of one year for the work charged service of every five years shall be taken into consideration. According to the original writ petitioners, the entire service rendered as work charged in the work charged establishment is required to be counted and/or considered for the purpose of pension.

2.6 There were differences of opinion in the two Division Bench judgments with respect to the counting of the period of work charged services for the purpose of computing pensionary benefits and the length of pensionable service, therefore, the matter was referred to the Larger Bench. The Larger Bench by the impugned judgment and order has answered the reference in following terms:-

“(a) With respect to addition of the number of years of service rendered in a work charged tenure to the service under regular establishment, for the purposes of making the service of such regular employees pensionable, there is practically no substantial difference in the pronouncements of the two Division Benches in the case of Sheela Devi (supra) and Binod Kumar (supra). (b) For the purposes of pension, only such period from the work-charged tenure would be added for making the service of an employee which has been regularized to qualify him for pension. (c) While adding such period of work-charged tenure, the modus would be of granting / counting one year for every five years of service rendered