JUDGMENT :

Dinesh Maheshwari, J.

Preliminary and brief outline : These two matters, Writ Appeal No. 37 of 2012 and Review Petition No. 9 of 2016, involving the same set of parties and common set of basic facts, have been considered together; and are taken up for disposal by this common judgment.

2. The dispute herein had its genesis in a retirement package, termed as the Voluntary Retirement Scheme ['VRS'] also referred to as 'the Golden Handshake Scheme' or 'the Scheme', that was mooted by the Programme Implementation Department of the Government of Meghalaya to downsize several of the Public Sectors Undertakings/Enterprises ['PSUs'/'PSEs'], which were registering regular losses. The Meghalaya State Co-operative Marketing and Consumers Federation Limited ['MECOFED'] had also been one such sick Public Sector Undertaking that proceeded to apply such retirement package for its employees. However, several of the grey areas in the retirement package of MECOFED, particularly on the aspects related with the amount payable to the concerned employees (the respondents herein), gave rise to several litigation's and have ultimately led to the infra-court appeal and the review petition before us.