JUDGMENT :

1. Heard Mr.G.M.Amin learned counsel for the petitioner.

2. By way of this petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the petitioner prays for a direction to fix the pension and pensionary benefits of the petitioner. The order under challenge is that of the Gujarat Water Resources Development Corporation of year 2019 which indicates that the petitioner’s services were for nine years, four months and 13 days and therefore the petitioner is not entitled to the benefits of pension.

3. Mr.Amin learned counsel for the petitioner would submit that the petitioner was initially appointed on 01.06.1972 with the respondent no.1 District Panchayat on creation of the Corporation in the year 1978. Employees from the different departments including that of the Panchayat were brought to the Corporation on 16.06.1978 by way of en block transfer. No options were invited from the employees who have been transferred and therefore the State Government issued a circular on 14.10.1981 inviting options from the employees transferred to the Corporation. The petitioner served the Corporation till 31.03.2001. He was not given any option for the services rendered with the previous employer. The case of the petitioner is that for the purposes rendered with the previous employer i.e. District Panchayat for the period from 03.02.1969 to 16.06.1978, the petitioner is entitled to the benefits of pension. Reliance is placed on several decisions of this Court.

4. Having heard the learned counsel for the respective parties, what needs to be taken into consideration is a decision rendered in Letters Patent Appeal No.307 of 2017 and allied appeals of the Division Bench dated 28.02.2017.

5. Considering the question of whether pensionary benefits should be granted to the respondents in the appeal, for the period for which they had worked with the Government or District Panchayat, as the case may be, even when they had not completed qualifying services of 10 years, the Division Bench held as under:

“13. Having considered the submissions canvassed on behalf of the learned advocates appearing for the parties and having gone through the material produced on record, it emerges that the petitioners were appointed in the District Panchayat or in the Irrigation Department and because of the Resolution dated 08.06.1978 all the activities pertaining to tubewells/irrigation which were made under the Panchayat/Government, were transferred to the Corporation and entire staff including the petitioners came to be transferred to the Corporation and thereafter on 14.10.1981 resolution was issued by the respondent Government, whereby options were invited and those employees who did not exercise their options were treated to be the employees of the Corporation. The concerned petitioners have served with the Corporation and on attaining the age of superannuation, they retired from service. At the time of retirement, the Corporation has granted all the retiral benefits including CPF, leave encashement, gratuity, etc. Thus, we are of the view that the direction issued by the learned Single Judge to the appellant Corporation to pay the pensionary benefits is required to be modified by clarifying that the appellant Corporation is not liable to pay the pensionary benefits to the petitioners. Orders accordingly.

14. However, so far as the appellant District Panchayat in Letters Patent Appeal No.307 of 2017 is concerned, the original petitioner in the said petition served with the District Panchayat for more than 8 years and 7 months. However, because of the resolution passed by the Government, services of the said petitioner were transferred to the Corporation and he was absorbed in the Corporation. The contention of the learned advocate Mr. Munshaw that petitioner has not completed qualifying service of 10 years is misconceived, as for calculating the qualifying service, the services rendered by the petitioner from the date of his initial appointment till the date of his