JUDGMENT

Jyoti Singh, J. By this writ petition, Petitioners seek quashing of impugned order dated 23.01.2006, whereby their claim for pension has been rejected. Writ of mandamus is sought for directions to the Respondents to grant pension from the date of their voluntary retirement with interest @12% per annum on arrears of pension.

2. Factual matrix necessary to decide the writ petition is in a narrow compass. Petitioners are ex-servicemen and after their retirement/discharge from the Armed Forces, they were employed with Delhi Electric Supply Undertaking (`DESU') against the vacancies of Ex-servicemen on different dates between the period 04.10.1988 to 23.07.1992. Petitioners No. 1, 3, 4, 5 & 6 were appointed as Security Guards whereas Petitioners No.2 and 7 as Junior Clerk (Cash) and Junior Engineer respectively. Appointments were on regular basis and pensionary benefits were governed by CCS (Pension) Rules, 1972(hereinafter referred to as `Pension Rules').

3. DESU was restructured as Delhi Vidyut Board (`DVB')/Respondent No.1 and consequent upon unbundling of DVB w.e.f. 01.07.2002, Petitioners along with other employees were transferred to BSES Rajdhani Power Ltd. (BYPL)/Respondent No.2, a DISCOM, on "as is where is" basis and to protect the service conditions of the employees, Tripartite Agreement was entered into between the parties.

4. Respondent No.2 announced a Special Voluntary Retirement Scheme known as `SVRS-2003' (hereinafter referred to as `SVRS-2003') for its employees, vide Office Order dated 18.12.2003. After consulting Respondent No.1 i.e. DVB, Respondent No.2 issued a clarification that 5 years weightage could be given to the employees who opt for SVRS-2003 and are eligible under the provisions of Rule 48-B of Pension Rules.

5. Para 1.1 of the SVRS-2003 prescribed the eligibility conditions for an employee to opt for Voluntary Retirement (VR) under the SVRS-2003 viz. (a) regular employment in BYPL; and (b) completion of 10 years of service from the date of joining DVB or upon attaining the age of 40 years, as on the date of issue of SVRS-2003, i.e. 18.12.2003. SVRS-2003 also provided special benefits in paras 2 to 4, such as compensation in terms of salary for certain days specified therein, early bird incentive, encashment of earned leave etc.

6. Finding themselves eligible being regular employees, having completed 10 years of service and age over 40 years, Petitioners opted for VRS under SVRS-2003. Requests were accepted and Petitioners were released on various dates commencing from December, 2003 onwards. Between January to October, 2004, Petitioners No.1, 5, 6 &7 were paid pension but the same was stopped thereafter without assigning any reason or giving any opportunity of being heard, leading to representations being filed by them. In response to the representations, Respondent No.2 asked the Petitioners to intimate whether they were in receipt of pension from their parent department and responding to this Petitioners communicated that being ex-servicemen, they were drawing pension for their erstwhile services with the Armed Forces. By order dated 23.01.2006, representation of one of the Petitioners Sh. Brij Lal was rejected, which is the order impugned in the present writ petition.

7. The ground of rejection of the claim of the Petitioners was that under Rule 19(1) of Pension Rules, a re-employed military pensioner when confirmed in a civil post becomes eligible to exercise option either to continue to draw military pension or to cease to draw the same. Military pensioner who does not exercise the option within the specified period is deemed to have opted for retention of military pension and he then becomes eligible to draw two pensions, i.e. military and civil pensions, for military and civil services respectively, only on superannuation and is thus not entitled to pension on voluntary retirement under a special voluntary retirement scheme, such as the SVRS-2003.

8. Assailing the impugned actio