Important Point:
Once a daily rated workman is treated to be permanent in terms of resolution, his entire continuous service from the date of entry till retirement including his services rendered prior to the date of his regularization has to be taken into consideration for the purpose of computing pension or for making pension available to the employee.

Akil Abdul Hamid Kureshi, J.

1. This appeal is filed by the Dahod district panchayat challenging the judgment of the learned Single Judge dated 07.08.2015 passed in Special Civil Application No. 67 of 2012. At the center of the controversy is the right of a daily wager employee who was later on, as per the Government Resolution, regularized in service to receive pension. Learned Single Judge having directed the panchayat and State authorities to grant such pension, the panchayat is in appeal before us. To appreciate the controversy, we may refer to the relevant facts in brief.

2. The employee-original petitioner joined services of the panchayat as the labourer on daily wage basis on 28.05.1977. According to him, since then he was employed virtually and uninterruptedly and all throughout the period and in the process had completed more than 10 years of continuous service as provided in section 25B of the Industrial Disputes Act. In other words, in all those years, the petitioner had put in more than 240 days of actual work. On the basis of Government Resolution dated 17.10.1988, his service was also regularized with effect from 31.01.2006. He retired on crossing the age of superannuation on 31.01.2009. According to him, he had completed 22 years of continuous service which should qualify for pensionary benefits. Since such benefits were not granted, he approached the High Court by filing the said writ petition inter-alia praying for a direction that the respondents should pay to the petitioner pension with interest.

3. The stand of the respondents emerging from the record is that to receive pension, an employee must have put in a minimum 10 years of service. Since the petitioner was regularized only in the year 2006 and retired in December, 2009, he had put in barely three years of regular service. Since regular service is way below minimum 10 years of service required for pension, his claim for pension was rejected.

4. Before the learned Single Judge, the petitioner relied on the Government Resolution dated 17.10.1988 and a subsequent clarificatory circular dated 30.05.1989 to contend that even service prior to the regularization as long as the years during which the employee had completed continuous one year of service, would qualify for pensionary benefits. Learned Single Judge accepted the contention and by the impugned judgment, directed the respondents to consider the past service of the petitioner rendered as daily wager for the purpose of pensionable service provided in a particular year he had completed 240 days of service. The pension was to be released within specified time with interest at the rate of 9% per annum. It is this judgment that the panchayat administration has challenged before us in this Letters Patent Appeal.

5. Facts are not seriously in dispute. According to the petitioner, he had completed in all close to 22 years of service with the Panchayat, during which, he had worked for more than 240 days in each year. Even if this claim of having put in 240 days of actual service in each of the 22 years is subject to verification, even the original respondents do not dispute that the petitioner had completed far more than 10 years of such service. It was precisely because of this reason granting benefit of Government Resolution dated 17.10.1988, he was regularized in services on 31.03.2006. From such date onwards till he retired, the employee had concededly put in just over three years of service. The crucial question therefore is would the past service of completed years prior to regularization would count towards pensionary benefits.

6. As is well known, under Government Resolution dated 17.10.1988, the Government decided to grant benefits of regularization and permanency to daily rated workers who had completed more than 10 years of actual service prior to such date, of course subject to certain conditions. One of the clauses in the said Government Resolution was that the benefit of regularization woul