SHARMA, J. - (1.) THE petitioner has approached this court with the following prayer:- " (i) to direct respondent Bank to grant pension to the petitioner from September 27, 1994 the date he was relieved from the Bank, after extending benefit of Pension Scheme by providing a chance to exercise the option for the Pension Scheme. (ii) to declare unconstitutional the provisions contained in Regulation 22 of the S. B. B. J. (Employees) Pension Regulation 1995, to the extent of non-exclusion of those employees who tendered resignation after the Pension Scheme was notified. (iii) to treat the resignation letter of the petitioner as his voluntary retirement. "
(2.) CONTEXTUAL facts depict that the petitioner after being appointed as Probationer Officer on January 16, 1974 in the State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur (for short `sbbj') occupied various posts at different places and was finally promoted as Chief Manager in the year 1989. While working on the same post the petitioner was advised to join on deputation for two years as Faculty Member in the State Bank Staff College, Hyderabad, which is the appex training institution for the State Bank Group vide order dated June 2, 1993. After serving the Bank for more than 20 years the petitioner tendered resignation vide letter dated June 27, 1994, which was accepted vide order dated September 26, 1994. It has also been averred in the writ petition that SBBJ introduced Pension Scheme as sequel to the settlement arrived at between the Indian Banks Association and the All India Bank Employees Association, apart from the other Bank Employees Unions such as the NCBE and INBEF. The said agreement was signed between the parties on September 29, 1993. By the said agreement the pension scheme which eventually culminated into the SBBJ (Employees) Pension Regulations, 1995 (for short `1995 Regulation') was introduced in the Bank w. e. f. November 1, 1993. The pension scheme was circulated by Circular No. PER/13/94-95 dated June 10, 1994 to the Controlling Officers/branch Managers/chief Managers/assistant General Managers and Departmental Heads of the Bank. A request was made in the circular itself to all the authorities referred to above that the contents of the circular must be given wide circulation among the staff members posted under their control and in order to ensure that it has been properly published and brought to the knowledge of the Supervising and Award Staff Members. The directions to obtain signatures from the concerned employees find place in para No. 10 of the circular. A look at the circular goes to show that the scheme had to come into effect from November 1, 1993. In para 6 of the circular it was clearly stated that the option letter should be submitted to the respective Department Head/branch Managers under whom the employee concerned is working and the employees had to exercise its option before September 30, 1994. Subsequently the date of exercising the option was extended upto November 30, 1994 and it was further extended upto 120 days from the notified date i. e. the date of publication of the Pension Regulation in the Official Gazette i. e. March 23, 1996. In other words the date of exercising the option was extended further upto July 21, 1996. According to para No. 4 of the Circular even the retired employees of the Bank were also entitled to get benefit of pension scheme. The petitioner further averred in the writ petition that since he was working as Faculty Member in the Staff College Hyderabad, therefore, in accordance with condition No. 6 of the pension Scheme it was incumbent on the Principal or Vice Principal of the Staff College or for Controlling Authority to bring the aforesaid circular to the notice of the petitioner. The respondent Bank did not send a copy of circular to the Principal or Vice Principal of the Staff College and the circular was never brought to his knowledge either by the Bank or by the Controlling Authority or Head of the Staff College. The petitioner was completely unaware about the pension scheme introduced by the SBBJ. The petitioner who had put in 20 years and 8 months service in the Bank is entitled to get the benefit of Pension Scheme even if he seeks voluntary retirement. Prior to introduction of the Pension Scheme officers of the Bank could have proceeded for voluntary retirement only after putting in 25 years of service but there was virtually no difference in voluntary retirement and resignation because the pension scheme was not prevalent in the Bank prior to November 1, 1993. If the pension scheme would have been brought to the knowledge of the petitioner who was on deputation and was working out of the establishment of the Bank he would certainly have availed the benefit of the Pension Scheme and instead of submitting resignation he would have proceeded on voluntary retirement. The condition stipulated in para 5 of the circular reveal that intention of the Bank is to extend the benefit of pension scheme even to those employees who left service way back in the year 1986 and thereby to cover a large number of employees under the beneficial scheme of pension. The petitioner incorporated relevant provisions of 1995 Regulation which are as under:- " (i) Regulation 2 (n) " Employees" means any person employed in the service of the Bank on full time work on permanent basis or on part-time work on permanent basis on scale wages and who opts and is governed by these regulations, but does not include a person employed either on contract basis or daily wages basis or on consolidated wages. " (ii) Regulation 2 (r) "notified date" means the date on which these regulations are published in the Official Gazette. " (iii) Regulation 2 (w) " (w) "qualifying service" means the service rendered while on duty or otherwise which shall be taken into account for the purpose of pension under these regulations. " (iv) Regulation 2 (y) (y) "retirement means cessation from Bank's service. (a) on attaining the age of superannuation specified in service Regulation or Settlements; (b) on voluntary retirement in accordance with provisions contained in regulation 29 of these regulations; (c) on premature retirement by the Bank before attaining the age of superannuation specified in Service Regulations or Settlement. " Chapter 2: Application and Eligibility of Pension Scheme: " Application these regulations shall apply to employees who- (vi) para 2 (a): have retired on or after the 1st day of November, 1993 but before the notified date; and (b) exercise an option in writing within one hundred and twenty days from the notified date to becomes member of the Fund; and (c) refund within sixty days after the expiry of the said period of one hundred and twenty days specified in clause (b) the entire amount of the Bank's contribution to the Provident Fund and interest accrued thereon together with a further simple interest at the rate of six percent per annum on the said amount from the date of settlement of the Provident Fund account till the date of refund of the aforesaid amount to the Bank; or" (vii) Regulation 29: Pension on Voluntary Retirement: (1) On or after the 1st day of November, 1993 at any time after an employee has completed twenty years of qualifying service he may be giving notice of not less than three months in writing to the competent authority retire from service; Provided that this sub-regulation shall not apply to an employee who is on deputation or on study leave abroad unless after having been transferred or having returned to India he has resumed charge of the post in India and has served for a period of not less than one year; Provided further that this sub-regulation shall not apply to an employee who seeks retirement from service for being absorbed permanently in an autonomous body or a public sector undertaking or company or institution or body, whether incorporated or not to which he is on deputation at the time of seeking voluntary retirement; Provided that this sub-regulation shall not apply to an employee who is deemed to have retire in accordance with clause (1) of regulation2. (2) The notice of voluntary retirement given under sub regulation (1) shall require acceptance by the appointing authority: Provided that where the appointing authority does not refuse to grant the permission for retirement before the expiry of the period specified in the said notice, the retirement shall become effective from the date of expiry of the said period. (3) (a) An employee referred to in sub regulation (1) may make a request in writing to the appointing authority to accept notice of voluntary retirement of less than three months giving reasons therefor; (b) On receipt of a request under clause (a) the appointing authority may subject to the provisions of sub regulation (2) consider such request for the curtailment of the period of notice of three months on merits and if it is satisfied that the curtailment of the period of notice will not cause any administrative inconvenience the appointing authority may relax the requirement of notice of three months on the condition that the employee shall not apply for commutation of a part of his pension before the expiry of the notice of three months. (4) An employee who has elected to retire under this regulation and has given necessary notice to that effect to the appointing authority shall be precluded from withdrawing his notice except with the specific approval of such authority; Provided that the request for such withdrawal shall be made before the initial date of his retirement. (5) The qualifying service of an employee retiring voluntary under this regulation shall be increased by a period not exceeding five years, subject to the condition that the total qualifying service rendered by such employee shall not in any case exceed thirty three years and it does not take him beyond the date of superannuation. (6) The pension of an employee retiring under this regulation shall be based on the average emoluments as defined under clause (d) of regulation 2 of these regulations and the increase not exceeding five years in his qualifying service, shall not entitle him to any notional fixation of pay for the purpose of calculating his pension. The petitioner challenges correctness, legality and validity of Regulation 22 of the 1995 Regulations in so far as it disqualifies persons who have tendered resignation from the service irrespective of any further condition such as the resignation submitted subsequent to the cut off date for application of the pension scheme i. e. November 1, 1993 should be ignored. Regulation 22 which relate to event of disqualification reads as under:- " 22. Event of disqualification: (1) Resignation or dismissal or removal or termination of an employee from the service of the Bank including that of an employee who is deemed to have voluntarily retired from the Bank's service in terms of the provisions for voluntary cessation of employment contained in Bipartite settlement shall entail forfeiture of his entire past service and consequentive shall not qualify for pensionary benefits: (2) An interruption in the service of a Bank employee entails forfeiture of his past service except in the following cases namely:- (a) authorised leave of absence; (b) suspension where it is immediately followed by reinstatement whether in the same or a different post, or where the Bank employee dies or is permitted to retire or is retired on attaining the age of compulsory retirement while under suspension; (c) Transfer to non-qualifying service in an establishment under the control of the Government or Bank if such transfer has been ordered by a Competent Authority in the public interest; (d) Joining time while on transfer from one post to another. (3) Notwithstanding anything contained in sub regulation (2), the competent authority may by order, commute retrospectively the periods of absence without leave as extraordinary leave. (4) (a) In the absence of a specific indication to the contrary in the service record an interruption between two spells of service rendered by an employee shall be treated as automatically condoned and the pre interruption service treated as qualifying service; (b) Nothing in clause (a) shall apply to interruption caused by resignation, dismissal or removal from service or for participation in a strike. Provided that before making an entry in the service record of the Bank employee regarding forfeiture of past service because of his participation in strike, an opportunity of representation may be given to such bank employees. "
(3.) ACCORDING to the petitioner Regulation 22 which disentitles a person who submitted resignation after cut off date is arbitrary, unreasonable and unjust in as much as it does not take into consideration the event that resignation is submitted by such employee in absence of the pension scheme and for him resignation or voluntary retirement does not mean much. Apart from it since the cut off date for applicability of the pension scheme is October 30, 1993, therefore all those persons who were in service on the aforesaid date form one class and there cannot be any distinction in the persons falling the same class or category. Denial of pension scheme on the basis of subsequent event of resignation is a discrimination among the persons falling in the representations were submitted by the petitioner to authorities concerned and the respondent Bank vide communication dated September 10, 1998 and December 2, 1998 rejected the request of the petitioner to apply pension scheme in his case on the ground that he did not exercise option as per circular dated June 10, 1994. The respondent Bank submitted reply to the writ petition raising preliminary objection about the maintainability of the writ petition. It has been pleaded that the petitioner is not eligible under Regulation 3 in as much as he cannot be said to have retired from the bank's service within the meaning of the 1995 Regulations. Since the petitioner has assailed the validity of Regulation 22 the writ petition is not maintainable on the ground of misjoinder of necessary party. It has also been stated that the writ petition suffers from abnormal delay. The petitioner's resignation was accepted on September 26, 1994 and the writ petition has been filed after a long lapse of six years. The petitioner has already received Provident Fund, Bank's contribution and other retirement benefits after his resignation was accepted without demur. The pension Regulations came to be published on March 23, 1996 but the same were provided to have into force with effect from September 29, 1995 vide regulation 1 (b) of 1995 Regulations. Even after 1996 the petitioner did not take any steps and for the first time he made representation in the year 1998, therefore he is not entitled to any relief. It has also been averred that the pension scheme was widely circulated and the petitioner has not been prejudiced on that count in any manner whatsoever. The pension scheme was published by the Official Gazette for information of all concerned employees requiring them to give their options in writing within 120 days from the notified date. Since the petitioner submitted resignation and did not seek voluntary retirement, he is not entitled to benefits of pension scheme. I have given my anxious consideration to the rival submissions and carefully scanned the material on record. ;