* IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI Reserved on: 09^th March, 2026 Pronounced on: 16^th April, 2026 Uploaded on: 16^th April, 2026 + W.P.(C) 7270/2019 RAM RATAN VERMA AND ORS. .....Petitioners Through: Mr. Shailendra Singh and Mr.

Abhyuday Dhasmana, Advocates.

versus THE UNION OF INDIA AND ORS. .....Respondents Through: Mr. Manoj and Ms. Aparna Sinha, Advocates for R-2.

Dr. Monika Arora, CGSC with Mr. Prabhat Kumar, Advocate for R-1, 3, 4.

CORAM:

HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE SANJEEV NARULA

JUDGMENT

SANJEEV NARULA, J.:

1. This writ petition has been filed by retired direct recruits of the Food Corporation of India, “FCI” seeking a mandamus directing the Respondents to grant them the benefit of pension on the footing that they were wrongly excluded from the regime available to the employees who had come into FCI from the erstwhile Food Department. The claim is founded essentially on parity and discrimination.

2. FCI was established in the year 1965. The FCI Staff Regulations came into force in the year 1971. According to the Petitioners, employees recruited prior to the coming into force of those Regulations were initially governed by the Central Civil Services Rules., “CCS Rules” They further state that, till the year 1983, both the employees transferred from the erstwhile Food Department and the direct recruits of FCI continued on the Central Dearness Allowance pattern, with pay and allowances broadly aligned to those of Central Government employees.

3. The Petitioners who belong to the class of direct recruits have a grievance that, although they worked in the same establishment, under the same pay pattern for long periods, and within the same service structure as the transferred employees, they were denied the pensionary benefit that the latter were permitted to retain or elect. According to them, while the transferred employees had access to pension on the Central Government model, the direct recruits were continued under the FCI Contributory Provident Fund Regulations, 1967 and were never afforded any corresponding option to move to pension.

4. The Petitioners place reliance on the Office Memorandum dated 1^st May, 1987, under which CPF beneficiaries in service on 1^st January, 1986 were to be treated as having come over to pension unless they opted to remain under the CPF scheme. Their case is that a similar liberalised approach was adopted in several other public bodies and public sector institutions, including public sector insurance companies by instruction dated 2^nd March, 2019, but no such benefit was ever extended to FCI direct recruits. The exclusion of that class is, therefore, assailed as arbitrary and discriminatory.

5. The Respondents dispute the claim. Their case, in substance, is that the direct recruits and the transferred employees never formed one legal class in the matter of terminal benefits. According to them, the position of the transferred employees flowed from their antecedent status as Government employees and from the statutory arrangement governing their transfer to FCI, whereas the Petitioners, being direct recruits of the Corporation, were governed by FCI’s own service and provident fund framework. It is, therefore, their case that the Office Memorandum dated 1^st May, 1987 had no application to the Petitioners.

Issues

6. Having considered the submissions advanced on behalf of the parties, the pleadings, the statutory provisions, the office memoranda placed on record, the rejection order dated 30^th June, 2015, and the authorities relied upon by both sides, the following issues arise for determination:

(i) whether the Petitioners, being direct recruits of FCI, can claim pensionary benefits at par with the food transferees as a matter of legal right; (ii) whether the Office Memorandum dated 1^st May, 1987 applies, either directly or by necessary implication, to FCI direct recruits;

(iii) whether the denial of such benefit to the Petitioners offends Article 14 of the Constitution; and (iv) whether the rejection order dated