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Judgment
Harsimran Singh Sethi, J. (Oral)
The present petition has been filed for challenging the order dated 29.06.2007 (Annexure P-6), passed by the Chief Manager, State Bank of India, vide which, the petitioner has been declared not eligible for pension, in terms of para No.2(i) of PP6 Deptt. Circular No. CIRDO/PP6 No.2 of 1997-98 dated 16.06.07 as well as the provisions of the Pension regulations under which, only the confirmed service is to be taken into account for computing the qualifying service of 10 years for adjudging the eligibility for the grant of pensionary benefits.
Further, the challenge is to the rules, according to which, though an employee is entitled to continue in service up to the age of 60 years, however, the qualifying service will only be adjudicated keeping in view when the date, he/she attains the age of 58 years, ignoring 2 years of further actual service rendered.
Certain facts needs to be mentioned for the correct appreciation of the issue in hand.
The petitioner was appointed as a Guard-cum-Messenger being ex-serviceman on 16th July, 1984 and was further confirmed on the aforesaid post on 16.01.1985. The retirement age for the said post was 60 years and accordingly on attaining the age of superannuation, the petitioner retired from the service on 31.10.1996 after rendering a service of 12 years 03 months and 15 days. After retirement, the petitioner made a request for the grant of pension under the State Bank of India Employees Pension Fund Regulations, 2014 (hereinafter referred to as ‘the 2014 Regulations’). According to Rule 22 of the said Regulations, if in case, an employee of the Bank is in service on or after 01.11.1993, if such employee has completed ten years of the pensionable service on that date, upon attaining the age of 58 years, would be entitled for the pension.
By operation of the said Rule, the petitioner attained the age of 58 years on 31.10.1994. However, keeping in view that he was appointed as a confirmed employee on 16.01.1985, he had not completed the requisite 10 years of pensionable service by the time he attained the age of 58 years. Although, he actually retired on attaining the age of 60 years, which is age of Grade D employee as he was given extension in service for a period of two years, which period of two years was not taken into consideration for adjudging his eligibility for pension.
By way of present petition, the petitioner has challenged the said rule i.e. 2 year valid service excluded starting from 01.11.1994 till 31.10.1996 has been ignored by the respondent-Bank to adjudge his eligibility for pension, is wrong and any such Rule which takes out his valid service, is liable to be set aside especially when the rule has no reasonable basis to take out such service while computing the eligibility to grant the pension. It is further argued that even the ad hoc service is liable to be counted as qualifying service for the grant of pensionary benefits which service has also been ignored by the respondent-Bank.
Learned Senior counsel appearing on behalf of respondent-Bank submits that once, the regulations of 2014 prescribed a particular provision for the grant of pension, the claim has to be undertaken and considered, according to terms mentioned in the Regulations. According to the aforesaid provisions, the action has been taken by the Bank, keeping in view the rule in existence, as only those employees who had completed 10 years of pensionable service upon attaining the age of 58 years were eligible for consideration for the grant of pensionary benefits. Consequently, the service rendered by the petitioner during the extension period for two years, beyond the age of 58 years, has rightly been ignored.
Learned Senior counsel further submits that once the age of retirement is fixed at 58 years, the rule rightly ignores two years extension granted, as the extension in service is the discretion of the Bank to be granted to the employees, whose services are required to be continued up to the age of 60 years and therefore, once the age of retirement is 58 years, the eligibility to get the pension is to be seen up to the date of attaining the age of retirement i.e. 58 years, hence, two years of service on extension has rightly been ignored by the authorities concerned.
Learned Senior counsel further submits that keeping in view the memorandum dated 04.01.2002, the eligibility to opt for the scheme was only up to the date of attaining the age of 48 years and the petitioner had already attained the age of 48 years prior to 16.01.1985 and therefore, he otherwise could not have been allowed to be the member of the said pension scheme.
We have heard learned counsel for the parties and have gone through the record with their able assistance.
The primary question which arises in the present petition, is that whether, keeping in view the facts and circumstances of the present case, the petitioner is entitled for the grant of pensionary benefits or not.
It may be noticed that the law on the above-discussed issue is settled that the total service which an employee has rendered, is liable to be taken into consideration for computing his/her eligibility to seek pensionary benefits. The pensionary benefits are to be given so that an employee who has rendered the service with the bank is able to survive after he/she attains the age of the superannuation and such regulations are to be interpreted in a manner that maximum benefit could be extended to the employees who opt for the same.
In the present case, the petitioner joined on 16.07.1984 on temporary basis and his services were regularized after a period of 6 months on 16.01.1985 and he was a confirmed employee on such date. Thereafter, he continued working up to 31.10.1996. The total length of service from the date of initial joining i.e. 16.07.1984 till 31.10.1996 is more than 12 years 3 months and 15 days. That being so, it cannot be said that such an employee does not fulfil the minimum criteria of 10 years of service in order to become eligible for the grant of pensionary benefits.
Regulation 22 of the 2014 Regulations is the rule which has been made applicable upon the petitioner and according to which rule, the petitioner is being declared ineligible to seek pension. The above-discussed Regulation is reproduced as under:
“(1)A member shall be entitled to a pension under these regulations on retiring from the Bank's service
(a)after having completed twenty years' pensionable service provided that he has attained the age of fifty years or if he is in the service of the Bank on or after the 1st November, 1993, after having completed ten years pensionable service provided that he has attained the age of fifty eight years or if he is in the service of the Bank on or after the 22nd May, 1998, after having completed ten years pensionable service provided that he has attained the age of sixty years;
(b)after having completed twenty years' pensionable service, irrespective of the age he shall have attained, if he shall satisfy the authority competent to sanction his retirement by approved medical certificate or otherwise that he is incapacitated for further active service.
(c)after having completed twenty years pensionable service, irrespective of the age he shall have attained at his request in writing;.
(d)after twenty five years' pensionable service.”
A bare perusal of the abovesaid Regulation would show that, in the case an employee who was in service as on 01.11.1993, he/she is required to complete 10 years of service upon attaining the age of 58 years in order to be eligible for the grant of pension. Whereas, in the case of an employee who is in service up to 22.05.1998, the said requirement of 10 years of pensionable service was to be fulfilled upon attaining the age of 60 years of service. Therefore, keeping in view the date of retirement, the different rule is being adopted. Meaning thereby that any employee who retired prior to 22.05.1998, for computing 10 years, the age of retirement is to be taken as 58 years and for a person retiring after 22.05.1998, the age of retirement is to be taken as 60 years so as to complete 10 years of service. Hence, the respondents themselves have mentioned that in case a person who has retired at the age of 60 years, the 10 years is to be examined keeping in view the date of retirement.
The said clause of the 2014 Regulations is under challenge in the present petition that there is no reasonable nexus with the object sought to be achieved. Learned Senior counsel for the respondents has not been able to justify as to why, a person who retires on 30.04.1998, only the experience gained up to the date he/she attains the age of 58 years is to be seen for invoking eligibility even if such employee was granted extension of service up to 60 years of age. The said anomaly creates a cut off date which has no reasonable nexus with the object sought to be achieved so as to ignore valuable service rendered for a period of 2 years. Further, in case an employee retires at the age of 58 years then also, it can be understood that his total length of service is taken into consideration but an employee who even prior to 22.05.1998 has been allowed to continue in service up to the age of 60 years, his last two years service is white washed for adjudicating his eligibility to get pension, keeping in view 10 years service required to be eligible for grant of pensionary benefits. However, nothing has come on record so as to show how, an actual service rendered by an employee can be taken out to adjudicate his/her eligibility to get the pension. Not even a single day of service rendered can be excluded to adjudicate the eligibility of an employee to seek pension and such exclusion has gone unexplained qua the purpose to be achieved even in the written statement also. Merely, the Regulations have been reproduced which have been made applicable rather than stating the reason and justification for enacting such Regulations for excluding two years of valid service which the employee has actually rendered. Keeping in view the said fact, such regulation which excludes actual two years service rendered, cannot be accepted as no valid Regulations, especially when no nexus with object sought to be achieved has been placed before the Court.
Further, learned Senior Counsel for the respondents has mentioned that the petitioner had attained the age of 48 years and hence, he could not have been inducted into the pension scheme. The reliance is being placed upon the notification of the year 2002 in this regard. It may be noticed that the petitioner had retired from service in the year 1996, any rule which has been made subsequently after the retirement of the petitioner cannot be made applicable to the petitioner and that too retrospectively.
Keeping in view the totality of the facts and circumstances, the respondent-Bank is directed to interpret the Rule 22 of the Pension Regulations that in case an employee retires at the age of 58 years, 10 years are to be computed keeping in view the actual service rendered upto the date of superannuation at fifty eight years of age but, in case, the employee has been allowed to continue, thereafter upon grant of extension upto the age of sixty years, the requirement of completion of ten years service will be taken up on the actual date of retirement on attaining the age of superannuation, i.e. the age of 60 years.
Even otherwise, such Regulation, which takes away the actual service rendered by an employee to be treated as a qualifying service is contrary to the policy of the Government and any such regulation which causes harm to an employee and that too so as to take away a valid service rendered for a particular period for consideration of pensionary benefits so as to cause prejudice to such employee is to be treated as ineligible. Hence, such regulation cannot be sustained and rather has to be interpreted in a manner which gives true meaning to the intention behind such regulation which is grant of pension to a person, who has actually rendered 10 years of service up to the date of superannuation. Hence, the said interpretation is being given to the rule that wherever, an employee has rendered 10 years of actual service on the date of retirement irrespective of the fact whether the same at the age of 58 years or 60 years, such an employee is entitled to the grant of pensionary benefits by treating him/her eligible and in the present case when such view is made applicable, it is a conceded fact that when the petitioner retired from service, he had rendered an actual service of more than 12 years instead of the requirement of 10 years.
Hence, the petitioner was well within his right to claim the pensionary benefits being fully eligible on the date of retirement i.e. 31.10.1996 as he already had more than 10 years of service to his credit even if, the temporary service is to be excluded which is a conceded fact.
Furthermore, it may be noticed that as per the judgment of the Division Bench of this Court in ‘State Bank of India and Another vs. Kuldeep Raj’, LPA No.731 of 2012 decided on December 11, 2014, even the ad hoc service is required to be counted for adjudicating the eligibility for the grant of pension. Learned Senior counsel has not been able to rebut the same. Even otherwise, as per the judgment of Hon’ble Supreme Court of India in ‘Prem Singh vs. State of Uttar Pradesh’ (2019) 10 SCC 516, the ad hoc service rendered cannot be excluded from the zone of consideration to adjudge the eligibility to get the pension. The relevant paragraph of the said judgment is as under:
35.There are some of the employees who have not been regularized in spite of having rendered the services for 30-40 or more years whereas they have been superannuated. As they have worked in the work-charged establishment, not against any particular project, their services ought to have been regularized under the Government instructions and even as per the decision of this Court in Secretary, State of Karnataka & Ors. v. Uma Devi 2006 (4) SCC 1. This Court in the said decision has laid down that in case services have been rendered for more than ten years without the cover of the Court's order, as one time measure, the services be regularized of such employees. In the facts of the case, those employees who have worked for ten years or more should have been regularized. It would not be proper to regulate them for consideration of regularisation as others have been regularised, we direct that their services be treated as a regular one. However, it is made clear that they shall not be entitled to claiming any dues of difference in wages had they been continued in service regularly before attaining the age of superannuation. They shall be entitled to receive the pension as if they have retired from the regular establishment and the services rendered by them right from the day they entered the work-charged establishment shall be counted as qualifying service for purpose of pension.”
Hence, the total service rendered by the petitioner will be taken into account for computing his pensionary benefits starting from 16.07.1984 to 31.10.1996 and as he has already completed 10 years of service which was the eligibility for the grant of pensionary benefits. Accordingly, the respondent-Bank is directed to calculate the admissibility of the pensionary benefits within a period of two months and release the same by treating the petitioner eligible for the grant of pension on the date he actually retired on 31.10.1996.
At this stage, learned Senior counsel for the respondents further submits that the petitioner retired in the year 1996 and the writ petition was filed in the year 2008 and hence, the arrears should be restricted. It may be noticed that qua the grant of arrears of pensionary benefits, the judgments rendered by Hon'ble Supreme Court of India in Civil Appeal No.3086 of 2012 titled "Balbir Singh vs. Union of India and others", decided on 08.04.2016 as well as in Civil Appeal No. 6824 of 2018 titled as "Union of India through its Secretary and others vs. SGT Girish Kumar and others" 2026 (2) SCR 615 grants complete arrears, therefore the restriction sought to be put upon the grant of arrears cannot be accepted.
Hon'ble Supreme Court of India while passing order in Balbir Singh's case (supra) held as under:-
"XXX... The Tribunal was therefore justified in restoring the service element of the pension in favour of the appellant. The question however is whether the arrears could have been restricted to three years only. The Tribunal in our view need not have done so. That is because the appellant had a right to receive service element of the pension in light of Regulation 186 (supra), which right was valuable and ought to have been protected. The fact that the appellant had approached the Tribunal for redress belatedly was in the peculiar circumstances of the case no reason for the Tribunal to reduce the payment of arrears to three years only. We accordingly allow this appeal and modify the order passed by the Tribunal with the direction that the appellant shall be paid service element of the pension with effect from the date the said payment was stopped by the respondents. We however grant to the respondents three months time to calculate and release the arrears in favour of the appellant. In case the needful is not done within the time stipulated, the arrears payable to the appellant shall start earning interest at the rate of 9% from the date the period of three months expires till actual payment of the amount."
Recently again, the same issue has been decided by the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India in SGT Girish Kumar's case (supra), whereby it has been held that benefit of arrears is to be given from 01.01.1996 or 01.01.2006 as the case may be, in case of entitlement qua disability pension. The relevant paragraph of the said judgment is as under:-
“15.Pension, as authoritatively settled by this Court, is neither a bounty nor an ex gratia payment dependent upon the grace of the State. It is a deferred portion of compensation for past service and, upon fulfilment of the governing conditions, matures into a vested and enforceable right. Pensionary entitlements, therefore, partake the character of property, and cannot be withheld, reduced, or extinguished except by authority of law. This principle applies with full vigour to disability pension, which is grounded not merely in length of service, but in the impairment suffered by a member of the Armed Forces in the course of, or attributable to, the service rendered to the nation. The disability pension is not a matter of largesse, but a recognition of sacrifice made in service of the nation.
16.The Union of India, as a model employer, is expected to act with fairness, consistency and even-handedness in the administration of benefits conferred upon those who have served the nation. When a benefit is recognised by a policy and affirmed by judicial pronouncement, its application cannot be selective or uneven. The judgment rendered by a three-Judge Bench of this Court in Ram Avtar’s case (supra) was a judgment in rem and, therefore, the benefit of same ought to have been extended by Union of India to the eligible exservicemen instead of requiring them to file original applications before the Tribunal seeking their entitlement.
17.It is pertinent to note that the Union of India itself had taken a conscious policy decision to pay arrears of disability pension to D.S. Nakara v Union of India, 1983 AIR SC 130, State of Jharkhand & Ors. v. Jitendra Kumar Srivastava & Anr., AIR 2013 SC 3383, Vijay Kumar v. Central Bank of India & Ors., 2025 INSC 848 all eligible ex-servicemen from 01.01.1996 or 01.01.2006, as the case may be. This position is clearly borne out from paragraph 2 of the letter dated 15.09.2014 issued by Deputy Secretary (Pension), Government of India, to Chiefs of Army, Navy and Air Force. The similar intent is also evident from paras 3 and 6 of the letter dated 10.10.2018 issued by Director, Department of Pension and Pensioner’s Welfare, Government of India, wherein civilian Medical Officers were granted revised disability benefit from 01.01.1996 or 01.01.2006.
18.The aforesaid communications reflect a conscious and deliberate policy choice on the part of Union of India to confer upon all eligible pensioners the benefit of arrears of disability pension with effect from 01.01.1996 or 01.01.2006, as the case may be. In view of decision of this Court in Ram Avtar (supra), the Government of India, by an order dated 18.04.2016, expressly conveyed its approval to the Chiefs of the Army, Navy and Air Force for implementation of the directions issued by the Courts and Tribunals granting the benefit of broad banding of the disability element to Armed Forces Personnel who had retired or were discharged on completion of engagement with disability, attributable to or aggravated by military service. from the date specified in the respective judicial orders.
19.The order dated 18.04.2016 was a conscious policy determination taken with full financial concurrence. Thus, where the State itself, by a conscious policy decision, has determined that arrears of disability pension are payable from a specified cut off date, it is not open to it to subsequently resile and contend that such arrears ought to be confined to a period of three years preceding the claim. To permit such a course, would amount to acknowledging the right in principle while denying its substantive content in effect. Any such deprivation of accrued arrears which has become due to exservicemen in view of judicial determination as well as policy decision taken by the Union of India itself, would constitute deprivation of property and would amount to infraction of Article 300A of the Constitution of India.
20.This Court has, in a consistent line of decisions, recognised that right to receive disability pension is a valuable right and once found due the benefit of the same has to he giyen from the once found due, the benefit of the same has to be given from the date it became due. The same cannot be curtailed by restricting K.J.S. Bhuttar v. Union of India & Anr., (supra); Davinder Singh v. Union of India & Ors. (supra); Madan Prasad Sinha v. Union of India & Ors., (supra); Piyush Bahuguna (Order dated 25.03.2022 passed in Diary No.10713/2021) and Bijender Singh v. Union of India (supra) the benefit to a period of three years preceding the filing of the original application. In the absence of any compelling reason to take a different view, we find no justification to depart from the view consistently taken by this Court.
21.The contention advanced on behalf of the Union of India that the claim for arrears of disability pension is barred by Limitation Act, cannot be accepted. The issue with regard to broad banding of disability pension attained finality only on 10.12.2014. Thereafter, Union of India in the order dated 18.04.2016 addressed to Chiefs of Army, Navy and Air Force acknowledged in clear terms that arrears of disability pension were to flow from 01.01.1996 without any curtailment. Therefore, in the facts and circumstances of the case, the contention that the claims of ex-servicemen were barred by limitation does not deserve acceptance."
Keeping in view the above, once the benefit has been made admissible from the date of retirement, the arrears also cannot be restricted. Further, it may be noticed that the petitioner had retired from Class IV post and was litigating for many years and it is very unfortunate to know that while litigating, he passed away and even the wife, who subsequently tried to pursue the case, has also unfortunately died. Keeping in view the totality of circumstances of the case, the petitioner will be paid pension up to the date, he remained alive and thereafter, family pension will be paid up to the date, his wife remained alive and such arrears will be calculated with interest @ 6% per annum.
The present writ petition stands allowed in above-discussed terms.
Pending application(s), if any, shall also stand disposed of accordingly.