Nithyakalyani Narayanan. V
The Bombay High Court held that the pension provisions should be interpreted liberally as a social welfare measure and hence should not be denied on technical grounds and that it is a valuable right of government servants. The Court stated this while directing a college in Pune to disregard a gap in the service of one of their professors so that he would get retirement benefits.
A division Bench of Justice GS Patel and Justice Neela Gokhale observed that- “The right of pension is a valuable right vested in a government servant. It is a social welfare measure as a post retirement entitlement to maintain the dignity of an employee. Pensionary provisions must be given a liberal construction as a social welfare measure…the very basis for grant of pension must be kept in mind, i.e., to facilitate a retired government employee to live with dignity in the winter of his life and thus such benefit should not be unreasonably denied to an employee, more so on technicalities.”
The petitioner was appointed as a professor of Pharmacy in the college in October 1999 and he served till July 2009 with intermittent breaks. The breaks occurred as the post was reserved for ST candidates and his services were used since there are no other eligible ST candidates appointed for the post. From July 2009 to September 2020, the petitioner was provided with continuous service, after being appointed in an open category vacancy but he was denied post-retirement benefits by the Directorate of Technical Education (DTE), Maharashtra, stating that there was a shortage of 1 month and 16 days for him to be eligible for pension. There was a gap of 674 days in his service owing to technical breaks and vacations.
The Court held that there was an error in calculating the service of the petitioner by the DTE. The Bench remarked that the payment of his salary implied a contract even during technical breaks and therefore it cannot be said that there were gaps in service.
The Court criticised the college, the university and the DTE for not selecting an eligible candidate for the reserved category post and for employing the petitioner as a stop-gap arrangement for a decade, to create technical breaks and prevent him from completing the period for availing pension.
The court allowed the request and ordered to pay the pension to the petitioner by the defendants.
Senior Advocate NV Bandiwadekar, instructed by Advocate Aditi Naikare, appeared for the petitioner. The college was represented by Advocate Mahindra Deshmukh and the State was represented by Additional Government Pleader VM Mali.
Name of the Case: Dr Pradeep Rangrao Nalawade v. Poona College of Pharmacy
Bench: Justice GS Patel and Justice Neela Gokhale