The main legal point established in the judgment is that the Rules permitted counting of past service for the purpose of increment and pension, and the delay in approaching the Tribunal was not a valid ground for rejection of the applications.

JUDGMENT/ORDER

S.G.PANDIT, J. - Since these writ petitions are based on common facts and arising out of common order passed by the Karnataka State Administrative Tribunal, Belagavi (for short, 'Tribunal') in Application Nos.232/2018, 2203/2018, 2732/2018, 3018/2018 and 10101/2020, the same are taken up together, heard and disposed of by this common order.

2. Heard the learned HCGP Sri. V.S. Kalasurmath for the petitioners/State Authorities and learned counsels Sri. Aditya R Chakragiri and Sri. Suresh Bhat for the respondents and perused the writ petition papers.

3. Respondents herein, retired employees and legal heirs of deceased employees of AYUSH Department, were before the Tribunal in the aforesaid Applications challenging Government Orders dtd. 18/9/2017 and 21/9/2017, wherein their request for fixation of pay as on 1/1/1970 and to count their ad-hoc services for the purpose of grant of increment and pension was rejected and in two writ petitions, prayer before the Tribunal was to issue direction to the respondents/State Authorities to extend the benefit of 10, 15 and 20 years Time Bound promotion and consequently to refix the pay and pension by counting the services rendered in the erstwhile Medical Institutions as per the provisions of Karnataka State Civil Services (Absorption of Employees of the Medical Institutions taken over by the Government) Special (Amendment) Rules, 1990 (Annexure-A5).

4. In WP No.100857/2023 and WP No.100867/2023, the respondents are represented by legal heirs of deceased government servants, whereas in WP No.100854/2023 and WP No.100871/2023, the respondents are retired government servants.

5. The parties to the present writ petitions would be referred to as per their rank before the Tribunal.

6. Before the Tribunal, petitioners herein were the respondents and respondents herein were the applicants.

7. The applicants in the above writ petitions were appointed on 17/2/1964, 20/2/1964, 21/11/1966 and 28/5/1976 respectively as Medical Officers by the then Taluk Development Board. Under Government Order dtd. 30/6/1981, government took over medical institutions run by the Taluk Development Board and Municipalities along with regular incumbent staff w.e.f., 1/7/1981. Subsequently under the Rules called the Karnataka State Civil Services (Absorption of the employees of the Medical Institutions taken-over by the Government) Special Rules, 1985 (for short, 1985 Rules'), the service conditions of the absorbed employees were prescribed. Under Rule 4(ii) it is stated that the services rendered by the employees under the taken-over Medical Institutions until the date of absorption into Government service shall count for the purposes of increments, but denied the counting of service for the purposes of seniority. But, subsequently by 1990 Amended Rues (Annexure-A5), the Government extended the benefit to count the services rendered by the employees under the taken-over Medical Institutions until the date of absorption into Government service for the purposes of seniority, increments and pension in the same manner and to the same extent and subject to the same conditions as are applicable for the Government servants from time to time.

8. The applicants retired from Government service on 31/5/1999, 30/6/1994 and 28/2/2000 and on 31/5/2004 respectively. While fixing their pension, as the Government had not counted the earlier service for the purpose of granting pension and also that applicants were not granted time bound increments, two of the applicants had made representations which were rejected under the impugned endorsements dtd. 18/9/2017 and 21/9/2017 and other two applicants approached the Tribunal praying for a writ of mandamus, as stated above. The Tribunal after hearing the parties concerned, allowed the applications and quashed the endorsements where the applicants' request for grant of pay from 1970 and grant of time bound increments were rejected. In other two applications, the Tribunal directed th