- (1.) The petitioners are the teaching staff in the Regional Engineering College at Kurukshetra, which has since been declared as a Deemed University under the National Institutes of Technology Act, 2007. There had been originally 12 engineering colleges in various part of the India and they were governed by the Board of Governors. Subsequently, there were 8 more colleges that were similarly established and out of the total number of 20 colleges, 17 had pension schemes and of the colleges that did not have the pension scheme, the Regional Engineering college at Kurukshetra was one. It appears that the Board of Governors had originally taken a decision at 83rd meeting on 09.05.1994 for extending pension scheme to the employees of the College. The decision, which had been taken when it was put through to the Central government subsequently on 19.01.2001 was rejected by communication from the Ministry of Human Resources Development dated 16.03.2001. The petitioners' contention is that after enactment of the National Institutes of Technology Act, 2007 and the formulation of the Statutes notified on 23.04.2009 called "the First Statutes of National Institutes of Technology" pension scheme has been uniformly applied to all colleges. Rule 29 specifically provides as follows: 29 Provident Fund and Pension Schemes Employees of the Institute appointed prior to 1.1.2004 will be governed by Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules, 1972 and Central provident Fund (Central Services) Rules, 1960 and the Employee appointed on or after 1.1.2004 will be governed by New Pension Scheme of Central Government. Rule 29 of the Statutes that sets out the general terms and conditions of service of permanent employees specifically lays down that an employee appointed on or after 01.01.2004, shall be governed by the New Pension Scheme announced by the Government of India, while the employees of the Institute appointed even before 01.01.2004 are governed by the Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules, 1972. This claim of the petitioner is resisted by the Board of Governors of the National Institute of Technology at Kurukshetra contending that persons, who had retired before 01.01.2004 have all been members of the Contributory Provident Fund and not being in service at the time when the Act came into force, they are entitled to benefit of pension.
(2.) I would reject the above argument of the respondents only for the reason that Statutes make a specific reference to employees of the Institute prior to 01.01.2004 as persons to be governed by the Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules, 1972. In respect of such persons, who were contributory to CPF and who have also withdrawn the benefits, they could be given an option to re-deposit the amount drawn by them with interest @ 12% per annum within a specified period and all such persons, who exercise such option shall be admitted to the pension scheme of the Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules, 1972. Since all the persons, who may stand to benefit through this order, may not be before this Court as parties, I would direct the National Institute of Technology at Kurukshetra to publish a circular in newspapers as well as by personal communication calling upon all the employees to exercise the option before a particular date to express option for the pension scheme within a period of 3 months and extend the Central Pension Scheme, 1972 to all such persons, who exercise the option. With these observations, the writ petition is disposed of.;