JUDGMENT :

Heard Sri Ajeet Kumar Singh, learned Additional Advocate General assisted by Sri Pankaj Kumar Rai, learned Additional Chief Standing Counsel and Sri Amit Verma, learned Standing Counsel for the respondents-appellants and Sri Yogesh Kumar Saxena, learned counsel for the respondents-petitioners.

2. Present intra-court appeal has been filed against the order of the learned single judge dated 12.03.2018 passed in Writ-A No. 33526 of 2016 (Shiv Jag Sharma and others Vs. State of U.P. and others).

3. By that order, the learned single judge has allowed the writ petition, following the earlier decision of a Division Bench of this Court in Special Appeal (Defective) No. 773 of 2016 (State of U.P. and others Vs. Gorakh Nath Pandey and others), arising from an order of the another learned single judge dated 12.04.2016 in Writ-A No. 61107 of 2013 (Gorakh Nath Pandey and others Vs. State of U.P. and others).

4. In short, petitioners-respondents who had been engaged as workmen at the Churk and Dala Cement Factories established by the Government of U.P., have been directed to be paid pension, commensurate to the years of service rendered at those cement factories of the State Government, up to the cut off date i.e. 31.03.1981. They having rendered 10 years qualifying service on that date, were found eligible to that benefit, under Regulation 361 of the Civil Service Regulation.

5. Submissions of the learned Additional Advocate General are, all the petitioners-respondents were appointed as workmen at the Churk and Dala Cement Factories established by the State Government. Though, they may have served continuously for a period of 10 years in that capacity, they could never claim to be Civil Servants within the meaning of Regulation 361 of the Civil Service Regulation. The petitioners-respondents had only been appointed as workmen under the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946 (hereinafter referred to as the "Act, 1946") and the Standing Order issued thereunder. Referring to the Government Order No. 1355, dated 18.04.1972, it has been submitted, the distinction between the workmen who may have worked at the above described cement factories and the other employees and officers of the State Government, who may have worked at those establishment of the government and who were governed by the Industrial Standing Orders, may never have been equalised.

6. Reference has also been made to another Government Order dated 01.07.1989, to submit that the same was applicable only to Temporary Government Servants but not to workmen, who may have been engaged by the State Government.

7. Referring to another Office Order No. 3047-51, dated 02.08.2005, it has been submitted, the benefit of the pension scheme was applicable only to Officers and Temporary Government Servants of the above described cement factories, who were not governed by the Industrial Standing Orders, excluding the workmen who remained governed by the terms of the extant Industrial Standing Orders.

8. Relying on a decision of the Supreme Court in Ajit Kumar Nag Vs. General Manager (PJ), Indian Oil Corporation Limited; (2005) 7 SCC 764, it has been strenuously urged, workmen engaged at an industrial establishment owned by the State Government may never acquire the status of a government servant. Since the petitioners-respondents continued to be workmen of the State Government, up to the date of their absorption in the U.P. Cement Corporation incorporated by the State Government w.e.f. 1.4.1981, they never acquired the status of a government/civil servant, either while working as a workman at a factory establishment owned by the State Government or at the factory of the corporation owned by the State Government.

9. That status of government servant may have been acquired by some of the petitioners-respondents who later came to be absorbed in other government departments under the U.P. Absorption of Retrenched Employees Rules, 1991, occasioned by the winding of the U.P. Cement Corpo