Employees with lengthy service but only later regularized are entitled to pension benefits accounting for their full tenure, overriding conflicting recent statutes.

JUDGMENT :

Hon'ble J.J. Munir, J.-The petitioners, who are 21 in number, are tube-well operators, serving under Department of Irrigation, Government of Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow. A number of them have retired pending this petition, but that fact does not merit a detailed statement for nothing turns on it, so far as the issue involved in this petition is concerned. The State Government, with the help of financial assistance extended by the World Bank, established tube-wells across the State for the purpose of providing effective sources of irrigation in rural areas and reducing dependence on natural sources, such as rain. After these tube-wells were established, they were handed over to the Irrigation Department of the Government for the purpose of operation and maintenance. The Irrigation Department, in order to operate and maintain the tube-wells, employed two categories of employees, to wit, the operational staff and the maintenance staff. So far as the operational staff is concerned, the Irrigation Department employed persons, designated as tube-well operators at the entry level. The petitioners began their journey as tube-well operators, appointed on a fixed pay of Rs. 299/- between the years 1987 and 1990. The petitioners were not paid salary in the regular pay scale with a basic pay plus allowances. This was for the reason that they were part-time employees working on a fixed pay and not regulars in the establishment. After lapse of a considerable period of time, in the year 1997, the part-time tube-well operators association filed Civil Misc. Writ Petition No. 46247 of 1992 before this Court, claiming the following material reliefs:

''i. issue a writ, order or direction in the nature of mandamus directing the respondents to pay salary to the petitioners at the basic of Rs. 950/- alongwith other dearness allowance, house rent allowance and other allowance as are being paid to regular tube well operators similarly situated within one month of production of the order of this Hon'ble Court.

ii. issue a writ, order or direction in the nature of mandamus directing the respondents to pay arrears of salary and other allowances to the petitioner within one month of production of order of this Hon'ble Court.''

2. In the aforesaid writ petition, an interim mandamus was issued by this Court on 22.12.1992 in the following terms:

''Put up on the date fixed for admission.

Mean while the 3rd respondent, (Executive Engineer, Irrigation Department, Rajkiya Parichalan Evam Anurakshan Khand Moradabad) is directed to ensure payment of salary to the petitioner at the rate of Rs. 950/- (Rupees Nine hundred fifty only) alongwith admissible allowances on the basis of the principle of equal pay for equal work as alleged in the writ petition or to show-cause by filing counter-affidavit within six weeks from the date of receipt of a certified copy of this order.''

3. It is the petitioners' case that the aforesaid interim order was not challenged before any superior Court and attained finality, but that by itself it has nothing to do with the issue involved here. It is also the petitioners' assertion that they are discharging their duties with diligence and sincerity and their service records have been exemplary. In the exercise of powers under the Uttar Pradesh Tubewell Operators (First Amendment) Rules, 2008, the petitioners' claim was considered and all of them have been regularized on the post of tube-well operators with effect from 27.12.2008. Some years later, on the 28th of December, 2013, by an order of t