K.KANNAN,J. - (1.) The petitioner seeks for weightage of 5 years to be given for his superannuation pension in terms of Chapter XII of the Statute governing the service conditions of persons employed in the University. Rule 3.2 of the Pension Statute provided for a superannuation pension giving a weightage of certain number of years for calculating the qualifying number of years of service. To address the issue for adjudication, it is relevant to reproduce the Rule, which reads as follow: "(ii) Service Qualifying for Pension: 3.1 As provided in the corresponding provisions of the Punjab CSR Vol.II applicable to Haryana Govt. employees as amended from time to time. 3.2 An employee appointed to a service or post shall be eligible to add to his service qualifying for superannuation pension (but not for any other class of pension) the actual period not exceeding one fourth of the length of his service or the actual periods by which his age at the time of recruitment exceeds 25 years or a period of five years, whichever is less, if the service or post to which he is appointed is one. (a) for which post-graduate research or a specialist qualification or experience in scientific, technological or profession field is essential and (b) to which candidates or more than 25 years of age are normally recruited." The clause provides for certain provisos also but they are not necessary for the purpose of this case.
(2.) The petitioner's contention is that he had a Ph.D. qualification at the time when he was appointed as a Lecturer at the age of 32 on 05.07.1975. However, as per the University recommendations, the cadre of Lecturers/Research Assistant, which was lower to the post of Assistant Professor was scrapped and the scales also merged with the scales provided to Assistant Professors through a decision to this effect taken by the Haryana Agricultural University on 11.03.1976. On a representation given by the petitioner to inform as to the relevant date from when he must be treated as having been appointed as Assistant Professor, he had been informed that it should be taken that he was appointed as Assistant Professor from 05.07.1975. The counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner would, therefore, argue that since he already possessed a Ph.D. qualification, he must be given the weightage of 5 years in terms of Rule 3.2 of the Pension Statute.
(3.) The University has rejected his claim on the basis that in the manner of understanding the Statute, it was sought to be clarified by an instruction given by the Registrar to all Deans, Directors and Heads of Departments of the University on 23.02.2002. The communication sought to explain the rationale for providing the weightage and stated that the weightage under Rule 3.2 would be admissible only if the initial appointment of a person was as an Assistant Professor and equivalent when the qualification for the post was Ph.D. This was taken as a justification for rejecting the claim of the petitioner by pointing out that although he was treated as appointed as Assistant Professor later through the abolition of the post as Lecturer, at the time when he had been appointed he was appointed to the post of Lecturer, which did not require a postgraduate research or a specialist qualification. The fact that he had a postgraduate research qualification itself was immaterial since it must conform to every requirement of what the Statute provides for. The communication explains that a person, who passed a Postgraduate Programme and also have 3 years of experience cannot be at any stage before a person completed 27 years and, therefore, the weightage for that person could at best be only 2 years beyond 25 years. The counsel appearing for the respondents would explain that if at all, the weightage that could be applied to the petitioner would be only 2 years.;