Anil Kumar vs State Of HP And Another

Sandeep Sharma, J

By way of present petition, petitioner has prayed for following main relief:

“a) to issue a writ of mandamus, appropriate writ, order or direction in the nature thereof, directing the respondents to count entire period of service

rendered by the petitioner on contract basis wef 19.08.2007 till regularisation towards his seniority, pensionary benefits etc and all other purposes and

intents with all the consequential benefits and arrears alongwith interest thereon @ 18% paâ€​

2. Having heard learned counsel for the parties and perused material available on record, this Court finds that petitioner was appointed as Lecturer

(Political Science) on contract basis on 19.8.1997 and thereafter, on 26.6.2006, services of the petitioner were regularized with the Education

Department, Government of Himachal Pradesh. It is also not in dispute that petitioner from the date of his initial appointment on 19.8.1997 on contract

basis continued to serve department uninterruptedly without there being any break till his regularization on 20.6.2006.

Precisely, the claim of the petitioner is that services rendered by him w.e.f. 19.8.1997 as a Lecturer (Political Science) on contract basis till his

regularization on 20.6.2006 are required to be taken into consideration by the department while computing qualifying service for the purpose of

pensionary benefits and annual increment.

Question which needs to be decided in the instant proceedings is that “Whether service of an employee appointed on contractual basis in

temporary/adhoc capacity can be subsequently counted towards qualifying service for grant of pension or not?â€​

Respondents, in their reply, have taken a stand that this Court in LPA No. 114 of 2010, titled State vs. Uma Dutt Sharma (decided on 28.4.2011),

has held that ad hoc/tenure services rendered by an employee followed by regular appointment shall count for the purpose of increment and pension

but not contract service.

In this regard, learned Counsel appearing for the petitioner has drawn attention of this Court to judgment dated 1.1.2020 passed by this Court in

CWP No. 3267 of 2019 titled Ram Krishan Sharma v. The Accountant General (A&E) HP and Ors, wherein this Court having taken note of various

judgments rendered by the Hon’ble Apex Court as well as co-ordinate Benches of this Court have categorically concluded that services rendered

even prior to regularization in any capacity be it work-charged employees, contingency fund paid employees or non-pensionable establishment have to

be counted towards qualifying service even if such service is not followed by temporary or regular appointment in a pensionable establishment.

In the aforesaid judgment, this Court has already held that no discrimination can be made qua the employees, who rendered services prior to

regularization in the capacity of contractual employees and were regularized only because they had put in the requisite number of years of service on

contractual basis like their counterparts who had rendered services in the capacity of work charged employees, contingency fund paid employees or

non-pensionable establishment, of course, for that matter even on ad-hoc basis

Since question, which needs to be adjudicated in the instant proceedings has been elaborately dealt with and decided by this court in the judgment

rendered by this Court in Ram Krishan Sharma (supra), this Court sees no reason to go into that question again, especially when all the facts and

relief, as prayed for, in the instant petition are identical to that of Ram Krishan Sharma’s Case.

Consequently, in view of the aforesaid, present petition is allowed making the directions in Ram Krishan Sharma’s case (supra) mutatis

mutandis applicable, also to the present petition. Petition stands disposed of accordingly.