Compliance with settled law and the need to extend service benefits as per established judgments.

JUDGMENT :

BIREN VAISHNAV, J.

1. Rule returnable forthwith. Mr. Soaham Joshi, learned Assistant Government Pleader waives service of notice of rule on behalf of respondents.

2. With consent of the learned advocates appearing for the respective parties, this matter is taken up for final hearing today.

3. The prayer in this petition is to direct the respondent authorities to extend the service benefits of leave encashment.

4. This Court on 30.09.2022 in Special Civil Application No. 19395 of 2022 and allied matters in an identical circumstance, after considering various decisions of the Hon’ble Supreme Court held as under:

“1. RULE returnable forthwith. Mr. Soaham Joshi, learned Assistant Government Pleader for the respondent-State.

2. With the consent of the learned counsels for the respective parties, all these petitions are taken up for final hearing today.

3. The issue involved in these petitions with regard to extending the benefits of Leave Encashment from the due date is now settled in light of the State’s SLP No. 7229 of 2022 being dismissed by the order of the Hon’ble Supreme Court dated 1.9.2022 which reads as under:

“Delay condoned.

In view of the Resolution No. WCE-1588-(5)/(2)/G-2 dated 17-10-1988, the respondent employees are entitled to retirement benefits, gratuity, provident fund etc. In addition, they are entitled to two yearly optional leaves in total of 14 casual leaves, 30 days of earned leave and 20 days half pay leaves, as well as holiday on Sunday and during the national holidays/occasions.

In view of the aforesaid position, we do not find any good ground and reason to interfere with the directions given by the High Court to pay leave encashments on the retirement of the employees, as the same would pertain to encashment of the unused earned leaves. The payment is also in the nature of retirement 5 benefits.

However, it is clarified that the aforesaid directions would not be treated as granting the respondents a status of permanent or regular employees.

Recording the aforesaid, the special leave petitions are dismissed.

Pending applications, if any, stand disposed of.”

4. In light of above, these petitions are allowed. The respondents are directed to extend the benefits of Leave Encashment to the petitioners as reiterated by this Court in several decisions first in point of time being that of in the case of State of Gujarat and Another vs. Mahendrakumar Bhagvandas and Others vide order dated 18.3.2011 in Letters Patent Appeal No. 958 of 2001. Relevant portion of the said decision reads as under:

“12. The sequence of events therefore suggests that more than once the issue which was before the learned Single Judge in the impugned judgment was set at rest, and therefore, in our opinion, the learned Single Judge did not commit any error of law in directing the present appellants to follow the judgments in letter and spirit and confer upon the petitioners all the benefits as indicated in the judgment in the case of Mahendrakumar Bhagvandas (supra) and also the judgments in the table above.

13 We are at pains to observe that even the learned Single Judge while allowing these petitions, observed as under:

“In such a scenario, it would be a sheer waste of time, money and energy for this Court to reinvest the said resources to address the issue identical to the one decided by the Division Bench of this Court. In such a context, this Court in V.A. Parekh vs. State of Gujarat, 2009 (5) GLR 3922 made following observations:

“(1) It is immaterial that in a previous litigation the particular petitioner before the Court was or was not a party, but if law on a particular point has been laid down by the High Court, it must be followed by all authorities and Tribunals in the State.

(2) The law laid down by the High Court must be followed by all authorities and subordinate Tribunals when it has been declared by the highest Court in the State and they cannot ignore it either in initiating proceeding of deciding on the rights involved in such a