P. Jayalakshmi vs The State of Tamil Nadu and Others

D. Hari Paranthaman, J.—Since the matter is covered by a decision of this Court in P. Chinniyan Vs. State of Tamil Nadu, , the writ petition is taken up for final disposal.

The petitioner joined as Section Writer on 05.02.1986 on daily wage basis. It is a full time employment. She was regularised as Record Clerk on 11.07.2008. While so, she retired from service on 31.03.2014 on reaching the age of superannuation.

The petitioner claimed to count 50% of service from 05.02.1986 to 10.07.2008 in Section Writer Post on daily wage basis along with regular service for the purpose of pension. The claim of the petitioner was rejected by the first respondent in the impugned letter 5184/Ni.Va. 4(2)/2015-1 dated 10.04.2015. The relevant portion of the same is extracted hereunder:

As per the impugned order, since the petitioner was regularised after 01.04.2003, the petitioner is not entitled to count 50% of service along with regular service under Rule 11(2) r/w Rule 11(4) of the Tamil Nadu Pension Rules. On the other hand, she is governed by Contributory Pension Scheme.

In my view, the impugned order is erroneous, as it proceeds on the basis that the petitioner is governed by Contributory Pension Scheme. Only the persons who are appointed afresh after 01.04.2003 are governed by Contributory Pension Scheme. The persons who are already in full time employment on daily wage basis cannot be denied their right to get pension under the Tamil Nadu Pension Rules if they are regularised in service by counting 50% of their service rendered on daily wage basis along with the regular service.

In fact, the said Rule 11(2) of the Tamil Nadu Pension Rules, does state that the employees in contingent service and non-pensionable establishment on full time employment, are entitled to count their 50% of service on regularisation without reference to the date of regularisation. But Rule 11(4) has fixed 01.04.2003 as cutoff date for certain categories of employees such as employees on daily wages, on consolidated pay, on honorarium and non-pensionable service and if they are brought to regular establishment after 01.04.2003, the Rule says that 50% of their service in daily wage, consolidated pay, honorarium and non-pensionable service candidates, could not be counted along with regular service, though they were on full time employment on daily wage basis, on consolidated pay, on honorarium and non-pensionable service.

In these circumstances, this Court found that those employees covered under Rule 11(4) alone were discriminated by fixing the cut-off date as 01.04.2003, while no such cutoff date is fixed for the employees covered under Rule 11(2), and struck down the cut-off date as 01.04.2003 in Rule 11(4) in the judgment of this Court in P. Chinniyan Vs. State of Tamil Nadu, . In view of the said judgment, I am of the view that the impugned order is liable to be quashed and the petitioner is entitled to pension by counting 50% of the service in Section Writer post on daily wage basis along with regular service for the purpose of pension.

Hence, the writ petition is allowed and the impugned order is quashed and a direction is issued to the respondents 1 to 3 to send appropriate proposals to the fourth respondent for pension in terms of the aforesaid directions within a period of eight weeks from the date of receipt of a copy of this order and on receipt of such proposal, the fourth respondent is directed to pass appropriate orders authorising the same. No costs. Consequently, the connected miscellaneous petition is closed.