- (1.) Petitioner was initially appointed on 11.6.1968 as T. Mate on work charged basis with the Electricity Board. He was appointed/promoted as Assistant Line man on adhoc basis on 19.7.1975. His services were regularised as Assistant Line Man on regular basis on 25.11.1975. The petitioner was promoted to the post of Lineman and he retired as such on 31.12.2001 on attaining the age of superannuation. It is asserted that there was no break in his service since 11.6.1968 till regularisation of his service. On 25.1.2002, the pension of the petitioner was fixed. It is claimed that the service rendered by the petitioner on work charged and adhoc basis has not been taken into consideration as qualifying service while calculating pension and gratuity and only regular service has been reckoned with effect from 25.11.1975. On 28.5.2002, the petitioner through his counsel served a legal notice on the respondents for taking in account the service rendered by him as work charged and on adhoc basis for the purposes of calculating pension, gratuity and other retiral benefits. But no action was taken on the legal notice. The petitioner thereafter preferred Civil Writ Petition No. 15485 of 2002 which was disposed of by this Court on 26.9.2002 with a direction to the respondents to decide the legal notice dated 28.5.2002 (Annexure P.2) within a period of four months by passing a speaking order. The respondents while rejecting the legal notice has passed the impugned order dated 7.2.2003 (Annexure P.3) which is subject matter of challenge in the instant petition.
(2.) The prayer made by the petitioners has been opposed by the respondents by taking two objections. Firstly, it has been submitted that the petitioner was required to submit an option within a period of three months from the date of his regularation or from the date of issuance of circular dated 6.8.1993. Secondly, it has been asserted that the benefit of employer's contribution alongwith interest has not been deposited by the petitioner which was required to be done after exercising option within a period of three months.
(3.) We have heard the learned counsel for the parties at some length and find that the case of the petitioner is squarely covered by the judgment of Full Bench of this Court in the case of Kesar Chand v. State of Punjab, 1988 94 PunLR 223. The principle of law laid down by their Lordships' of the Full Bench is that the work charge service rendered by an employee followed by regularisation is entitled to be considered as a qualifying service for the purposes of pension. Even otherwise, Rule 3.17A has now been incorporated in the Punjab Civil Service Rules, Volume II, Part-I (as applicable to Haryana) in pursuance to the judgment of the Full Bench which envisages that all service interrupted or continuous followed by confirmation has to be treated as qualifying service and the period of breaks is to be omitted while working out aggregate service. Therefore, we are of the view that the claim made by the petitioner for reckoning the ad hoc service of the petitioner as qualifying service for pension is meritorious. The view of the Full Bench is discernible from the following para : "Once the services of a work charged employee have been regularised, there appears to be hardly any logic to deprive him of the pensionary benefits as are available to other public servants under rule 3.17 of the Rules. Equal protection of laws must mean the protection of equal laws for all persons similarly situated. Article 14 strikes at arbitrariness because a provision which is arbitrary involves the negation of equality. Even the temporary or officiating service under the State Government has to be reckoned for determining the qualifying service. It looks to be illogical that the period of service spent by an employee in a work charged establishment before his regularisation has not been taken into consideration for determining his qualifying service. The classification which is sought to be made among Government servants who are eligible for pension and those who started as work charged employees and their services regularised subsequently, and the others is not based on any intelligible criteria and, therefore, is not sustainable at law. After the services of a work charged employees have been regularised, he is a public servant like any other servant. To deprive him of the pension is not only unjust and inequitable but is hit by the vice of arbitrariness, and for these reasons the provisions of rule (ii) of rule 3.17 of the Rules have to be struck down being violative of Article 14 of the Constitution." The aforementioned celebrated authority in Kesar Chand's case has been followed and applied in the cases of Hazura Singh v. State of Punjab, 2004 1 SCT 695; Mangat Ram v. Haryana Vidyut Prasaran Nigam Ltd., 2005 4 SCT 302 and our judgment in the cases of Raj Kumar Sharma v. State of Haryana (C.W.P. No. 14774 of 2004, decided on 18.4.2006) and Mulakh Raj and another v. Dakshin HBVNL and another (CWP No. 1281 of 2006, decided on 20.11.2006).;