Employees eligible for regularization prior to a specific cutoff date may count previous service, despite delayed regularization, toward pension benefits under the relevant pension rules.

ORDER :

HEMANT CHANDANGOUDAR, J.

The petitioners seek a Writ of Mandamus directing the respondents to bring them under the purview of the TAMIL NADU PENSION RULES , 1978 (Old Pension Scheme) by counting half of the services rendered by them. The particulars of the services rendered by each of the petitioners are as follows:

2. The petitioners further seek a direction to treat the services rendered by them from the date of their initial appointment till the date of regularisation as qualifying service for sanctioning pension and other pensionary benefits, and also to allot G.P.F. (General Provident Fund) accounts. The petitioners were initially appointed on daily wage basis in their respective Municipalities and, after completing 10 years of service, their services were regularised.

3. The learned State Counsel appearing for respondents 1 to 3 and the learned counsel for the 4^th respondent Municipalities submitted that the petitioners were regularised after 01.04.2003 and, therefore, they are not entitled to the benefits under the Old Pension Scheme. The issue as to whether daily wage employees who had put in more than 10 years of service prior to 01.04.2003 but were regularised after 01.04.2003 are entitled to pensionary benefits under the Old Pension Scheme was examined by the Division Bench of this Court in W.A. Nos. 458 of 2019 and batch, etc.

4. The Division Bench, by order dated 14.12.2023, with reference to Rule 11 of the TAMIL NADU PENSION RULES , 1978 and also the Full Bench judgment of this Court in Government of Tamil Nadu vs. R.Kaliyamoorthy , reported in 2019 (6) CTC 705 , held that in cases where a Government employee/servant had rendered service in non-provincialised service or on consolidated pay or honorarium or daily wage basis, and if such services were regularised before 01.04.2003, half of the service rendered shall be counted for the purpose of conferment of pensionary benefits.

5. Therefore, this is in tune with the language used in Rule 11 (2) of the TAMIL NADU PENSION RULES , 1978. However, the fact remains that, even though these employees were entitled to regularisation well prior to 01.04.2003, for reasons best known to the employer, their services were not regularised before 01.04.2003 and were regularised only thereafter, by which time the New Pension Scheme had come into effect from 01.04.2003.

6. However, the Division Bench further held that whether the employees were entitled to seek such regularisation prior to 01.04.2003 is an important factor that has to be examined. The reason being that, if an employee had been working on consolidated pay or daily wage basis for more than 10 years, they would certainly have been entitled to seek regularisation. Such benefits had already been extended to a number of employees whose services were regularised on completion of 10 years. Therefore, these employees, having been employed since the early 1990s, even by the years 2000 or 2001 well before 01.04.2003 had become eligible to seek regularisation.

7. Therefore, the belated regularisation made by the employer cannot be pu