K. Kannan, J. - (1.) ALL these Petitioners are employees of the Public Health Department and they have been deputed to serve in Punjab Water Supply and Sewerage Board after its constitution. All the Petitioners were allocated on permanent basis to the Board from the Public Health Department vide notification dated 30.9.1987. The Government purported to have terminated the lien held by the employees by a memo dated 13.10.1987, which is the subject of challenge in the writ petition. The contention was that their lien could not be terminated since the terms of service in Punjab Water Supply and Sewerage Board did not provide for pension, which, if they had been retained in Punjab Health Department, thus would have secured.
(2.) SINCE the filing of the petition, almost all the Petitioners must have been superannuated. The counsel for the State states on instructions that the persons who had been sent from the Public Health Department on deputation to the Punjab Water Supply and Sewerage Board are all being given pension on par with the employees of Public Health Department. Learned Counsel appearing for the Petitioners states that the Petitioners No. 27 and 56 in CWP No. 12436 of 1989 are still in service. Treatment to them cannot be different and they cannot be denied what their colleagues who had been sent on deputation to the Punjab Water Supply and Sewerage Board enjoyed even on superannuation. I direct that no discrimination shall be practised even as against the Petitioners who were in service and they shall be granted the same privileges as other persons who had been taken on deputation to the Board and who have since been superannuated and who have been paid the pension.
(3.) THE writ petitions are disposed of holding that as regards the Petitioners who have been superannuated and those persons who are still continuing in service shall be treated at par and it is hereby directed that they shall also be granted the same benefits which have accrued to other persons who are since retired.;