Point of Law: Court are of the view that they are entitled to weightage of service rendered as daily wagers towards regular service for the purpose of pension.

JUDGMENT :

Sandeep Sharma, J.

Being aggrieved and dissatisfied with order dated 26.10.2020 passed by the Executive Director H.P. State Electricity Board limited, Vidhut Bhawan, Shimla, in purported compliance of order dated 26.10.2018, passed by the H.P. State Administrative Tribunal, whereby, directions were issued to respondents/competent authority to decide the case of the petitioner for grant pension in light of judgment dated 8th March, 2018, passed by Hon’ble Apex Court in Civil Appeal No. 6309 of 2017, titled as Sunder Singh Vs. State of Himachal Pradesh, petitioner has approached this Court in the instant proceedings, praying therein to set aside aforesaid order and issue directions to respondents/competent authority to extend the benefit of judgment passed in Sunder Singh’s case, which has been further clarified and explained in other judgment passed by Hon’ble Apex Court in Balo Devi Vs. State of H.P. & others i.e. Civil Appeal No. 4792 of 2022.

2. Precisely, the facts of the case, as emerged from the record are that in the year 1971, husband of the petitioner late Sh. Dhani Ram was appointed as T­Mate, on daily wage basis, with the respondents­Board. On 09.09.1992, services of late Sh. Dhani Ram were regularized. After having rendered 21 years of service on daily wage basis and 7 years, three months and 22 days on regular basis, husband of the petitioner retired from service on 31. 12.1999. In the year 2007, petitioner filed original application bearing No. 1344 of 2007, praying therein for grant of family pension after counting service rendered on daily wage basis equivalent to half of regular service. Vide order dated 20.11.2007 Annexure P­5, the Erstwhile Tribunal allowed the aforesaid original application and directed respondents to take into account 50% of the daily wage service rendered by the husband of the petitioner, namely, late Sh. Dhani Ram, while calculating his qualifying service for entitlement of pension, but no action, if any, ever came to be taken at the behest of respondent No.2 to implement aforesaid direction passed by Erstwhile Tribunal. As aforesaid judgment dated 20.11.2017 passed in the case of the petitioner was never challenged in the Civil Court of law, as such, same attained finality. Though issue of counting of 50% daily wage service rendered prior to regularization while calculating qualifying service for entitlement of pension came to be decided by Division Bench of this Court, wherein Division Bench of this Court concurred with the findings of learned Tribunal that 50% of daily wage service rendered by an employee is required to be taken into consideration while calculating qualifying service for entitlement of pension but since respondent­State preferred SLP and matter was remanded back to Division Bench of this Court, no steps, if any, were taken by respondents in terms of judgment dated 20.11.2007 passed in OA No. 1344 of 2004 titled as Ram Dei vs. H.P. State Electricity Board Limited. After remand order passed by Hon’ble Apex Court, Division Bench of this Court allowed the writ petition filed by the State holding that the decision of Central Government to count half of daily wage service while calculating qualifying service for pension has not been adopted by the State Government and as such, the State is not bound to follow the same.

3. In the meantime, Hon’ble Apex Court in case titled as Sunder Singh vs. State of Himachal Pradesh, Civil Appeal No. 6309 of 2017, passed on 08th March, 2018 directed that w.e.f. 01.01.2018, appellant therein or other similarly placed Class­IV employees, shall be entitled to pension if they have been duly regularized and have completed total eligible service for more than ten years. While passing aforesaid direction, Hon’ble Apex Court further clarified that daily wage service of five years will be treated equal to one year of regular service for pension and if it is found that their services are more than eight years but less ten years, their service