The main legal point established in the judgment is that the service rendered in the work-charged establishment should be counted as qualifying service under Rule 42 of the Rules of 1976 for a regular employee, based on the interpretation of the relevant rules and previous court decisions.

Arun Mishra, J.

1. Common question involved in all these writ petitions is whether under Rule 42 of M. P. Civil Services (Pension) Rules, 1976 (for short "the Rules of 1976") period spent by an employee in the work charged establishment can be counted as qualifying service.

2. Petitioners were initially taken in the service in M.P.E.B. in the work-charged establishment. They had rendered less than 10 years service in the work-charged establishment; they were absorbed in the regular establishment. However, there was no break in their service; that continued uninterruptedly pursuant to their absorption in the regular establishment.

3. Respondent M.P.E.B. decided not to count the period spent by the petitioners in the work-charged establishment as qualifying service under Rule 42 of the Rules of 1976 on the ground that Rules of 1976 are not applicable to work- charged establishment and as per Rule 12 qualifying service is only the one which is rendered by an incumbent in a substantive post either on permanent, probation or temporary basis and as per M. P. Electricity Board, the M. P. (Work-charged and Contingency Paid Employees) Pension Rules, 1979 (for short "the Rules of 1979") are applicable only to the employees who are not absorbed in the regular establishment and it is the further stand of the M.P.E.B. not to count the service rendered in the work-charged establishment that there is no overlapping permissible of these two sets of rules which are applicable in different scenario. Rules of 1976 applies to an incumbent who was in regular establishment and period of work-charged service is irrelevant for computing pensionable service under these rules whereas Rules of 1979 are applicable to the work- charged/contingency paid employees who were not taken in the regular establishment; thus, as per the stand of the respondent/MPEB, there cannot be any addition of service rendered in the work-charged establishment for computing qualifying service under Rule 42 of the Rules of 1976 for a regular employee.

4. Petitioners submit that their cases are covered by number of decisions of this Court and also the decision of the Supreme Court in Ram Kumar Agrawal vs. State of M. P. and others 1995 Supp (3) SCC 67. It is further pointed out that against the decision of this Court in case of M. T. Joseph, the matter travelled upto the Supreme Court as reflected in Annexure P/14 in W. P. No. 5252/01; the decision of this Court to count the period spent on the work charged establishment towards the qualifying service under the Rules of 1976 was affirmed by the Supreme Court and the respondents decided to implement the decision of this Court and that of the Hon'ble Supreme Court and counted the work-charged service towards qualifying service and the pensionary benefits were sanctioned. There are other orders placed on record of this Court passed by the single Bench in M. P. No. 1569/94 decided on 24-11-1993 (Annexure P/9), W. P. No. 4097/97 decided on 14-9-1998 (Annexure P/10), W. P. No. 2967/99 decided on 28-10-1999 (Annexure P/11) and W. P. No. 2809/2000 decided on 4-10-2001 (Annexure P/12); against the latter decision in W. P. No. 2809/2000, a Letters Patent Appeal is pending before the Division Bench of this Court.

5. Learned senior counsel for respondents Shri M. L. Jaiswal submits that decision of the Supreme Court has not taken into consideration the various provisions of the Rules of 1976; particularly Rule 2 which runs as under:-

2. Application. - (i) Save as otherwise provided in these rules, these rules shall apply to every Government servant appointed to civil services and posts in connection with the affairs of the State of M. P. and who are borne on establishments not declared as non-pensionable.

(ii) These rules shall not apply to:-

(a) persons in a work-charged establishment;

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Learned counsel further submits that Rule 12 which is to the following effect has also not been taken into consideration by the Ap