The court reaffirmed that administrative bodies must adhere to judicial directives, especially concerning equitable treatment in pension determinations, rooted in the principle of equality under Article 14.

1. Affidavit of service is taken on record.

2. The petitioner by way of present writ petition, challenges the impugned letter of communication dated 30^th October 2024 passed by the Director of Local Bodies whereby the petitioner’s claim for grant of pension has been rejected. The factual matrix giving rise to the present writ petition is as follows:

3. Petitioner was initially appointed as ‘Majdoor’

with the respondent municipality on 4^th December 1990 in casual capacity and continued to discharge her duties without interruption till her superannuation on 31^st December 2014. Although initially the petitioner was engaged as a casual employee but subsequently her appointment was regularized on 12^th February

2007.

4. Post retirement, the petitioner applied for grant of pensionary benefit. However, her claim was rejected on 1.12.2022 on the ground that the petitioner does not possess the requisite qualifying service under the applicable rules.

5. The same was challenged by the petitioner by way of writ petition no. WPA 5381 of 2023. This court vide order dated 12.9.2023 disposed of the said writ petition after examining the right of the petitioner’s claim in light of the aforementioned similarly situated employees. Operative portion of the said order reads as follows :

“in the instant case, the authority considered the pre-1992 casual workers in a single batch/group, but extended approval of appointment n respect of one set from their initial date of joining and in respect of the other set from the date of their approval. No reason being forwarded for such discriminatory action calls for interference by this court as the said action suffers from the vice of arbitrariness. Discriminating similarly situated candidates and granting benefit in respect of a handful and denying the same benefit in favour of the rest, amounts to discrimination, contrary to the principle of equality laid down under Article 14 of the Constitution. The same is impermissible in law.

The municipality admits that employees, similarly placed as that of the petitioner, are receiving pensionary benefit. In such a situation, not extending the same benefit to the petitioner will be sheer injustice, liable to be rectified by this court.

In view of the above, the impugned order passed by the DLB is held to be untenable in the eye of law and liable to be set aside. The impugned order is, accordingly, set aside. The DLB is directed to treat the petitioner in the same bracket as that of the other fifty-three pre-1992 casual workers and extend similar pensionary benefit as extended in favour of the employees whose service stood approved vide memo dated 20^th February 2006.

The authority is directed to calculate the terminal benefit of the petitioner on and from her initial date of joining and to release the payment, after adjustment of the provisional pension, at the earliest but positively with a period of four months from the date of communication of this order.”

6. Thereafter, the respondent challenged the said judgment before the Hon’ble Division Bench in MAT 70 of 2024 (The Director of Local Bodies, Government of West Bengal vs. Parwati Bansfore & Ors.).

7. The Hon’ble Division Bench disposed of the said appeal by order dated 13.8.2024. The operative portion recorded in para 14 reads as under :

“For these reasons, we are inclined to set aside the impugned order passed by the Director of Local Bodies and remand the matter before the said Director who shall after giving an opportunity of hearing to respondent no. 1/writ petitioner take a fresh decision thereon within eight weeks form date of communication of this order under the 2003 Rules by deeming respondent no.1/writ petitioner was abs