Full pension row: Setback to pensioners as HC upholds Haryana govt’s decision
The full bench presided over by justice GS Sandhawalia also upheld the government decision of cut-off date of January 1, 2006, as per which the number of service years was brought down from 33 to 28 years for the grant of full pension under the 6th Pay Commission, notified in 2009
In a blow to thousands of pensioners in Haryana, the Punjab and Haryana high court (HC) has upheld the 2014 Haryana government decision of prospectively reducing service years for grant of full pension from 28 to 20 years.
The full bench presided over by justice GS Sandhawalia also upheld the government decision of cut-off date of January 1, 2006, as per which the number of service years was brought down from 33 to 28 years for the grant of full pension under the 6th Pay Commission, notified in 2009. Those who retired before December 31, 2004 did not get this benefit of less number of years for full pension.
However, the court did not agree with the government’s decision of not giving benefits of reduced age from 33 years to 28 years for those who retired between January 2006 and April 2009. “Consequently, Rule 8(3) of Part-II Rules, 2009 is held to be violative of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India and is accordingly struck down. All employees who were in service as on 01.01.2006, will be entitled for the benefit of Part-II Rules, 2009 notified on 17.04.2009 irrespective of the fact whether they retired before the notification dated 17.04.2009 or thereafter,” it said.
The petitions were pending since 2015 from pensioners, who had various demands, including those who retired before December 2005, were seeking parity with those who retired thereafter.
One of the major demand was of making 2014 decision of the government applicable retrospectively. In 2014, service years for grant of full pension were brought down from 28 to 20 years prospectively from August 2014. As some of these issues were also considered earlier by a division bench in 2012, a full bench was constituted in March 2017 to examine the same
The bench also comprising justice Lapita Banerji and justice Harsimran Singh Sethi had reserved its judgment in March this year.
“It had huge financial implications for the state,” said additional advocate general , Haryana, Samarth Sagar, who appeared in the case, while referring to data given before the court. The state has a total of 2.13 lakh pensioners as per data given in March 2024. It further revealed that in 2005-06 pension bill of the government was 673 crore, which in 2009 rose up to 1,000 crore.
The bench presided over by justice GS Sandhawalia said,“The stand of the state is to be given due meaning even if the financial implication is not borne from the pleadings qua amendment dated 25.08.2014 unless, it is shown that the said reason is totally capricious or outrageous, the same cannot be set-aside.”
“Once a notification has been issued so as to be made prospectively applicable, the result is that one set of employees suffer as compared to the other ones but merely that one section of employees would face hardship is no ground to declare any amendment which is prospective, as ultra vires of Article 14 of the Constitution of India,” the full bench observed in its 69-page judgment.