O R D E R

1. The case, notwithstanding the volume of pleadings and documents, reveals a dispute that is not difficult to identify. It is, in fact, simple in outline, though not in consequence.

2. A group of former employees, and in some cases the legal heirs of former employees, of the Export Inspection Council [“EIC”] and its Export Inspection Agencies [“EIAs”], contend that they were denied pension under the Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules, 1972 [“CCS (Pension) Rules”], despite serving in an establishment to which, according to them, that regime had been extended.

3. The Petitioners’ case rests on one central proposition. They assert that with the framing of the Export Inspection Council Pension and General Provident Fund Rules, 1981 (“1981 Rules”), read with the OfficeMemorandum dated 1st May, 1987, employees in service on the relevant date stood brought under the pension regime unless they consciously elected to remain under the Contributory Provident Fund (“CPF”) scheme. The 1981 Rules are said to incorporate and extend the CCS (Pension) Rules within the organisational framework. It is further contended that, following the statutory changes of the mid-1980s, the CPF regime