Sarvesh Bhatia And Anr vs State Of Himachal Pradesh And Anr

Sandeep Sharma, J

By way of present petition, petitioners have prayed for following main relief:

“That the rejection letter dated 18.2.2013 may kindly be quashed and set aside and the respondent may very kindly be directed to grant all service

benefits to the petitioners from the date of their initial appointment with all consequential benefits.â€​

Having heard learned counsel for the parties and perused material available on record, this Court finds that petitioners were appointed as

Pharmacists on contract basis on 26.7.2002 and thereafter, on 9.1.2012, services of the petitioners were regularized with the Department. It is also not

in dispute that petitioners from the date of their initial appointment on 26.7.2002 continued to serve the department uninterruptedly without there being

any break till their regularization on 9.1.2012.

Precisely, the claim of the petitioners is that services rendered by them w.e.f. 26.7.2002 as Pharmacists on contract basis till their regularization on

9.1.2012 are required to be taken into consideration by the department while computing qualifying service for the purpose of consequential benefits i.e.

pensionary benefits and annual increment etc.

Parties are ad-idem that aforesaid question has been elaborately dealt with by the Division Bench of this Court vide judgment dated

26.12.2019,titled Smt. Sheela Devi v. State of HP and Ors in CWPOA No. 195 of 2019 (further followed by this Court vide judgment dated 1. 1.2020

in CWP No. 3267 of 2019 titled Ram Krishan Sharma v. The Accountant General (A&E) HP and Ors), wherein it has been concluded that services

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

establishment have to be counted towards qualifying service even if such service is not preceded 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 paid fund employees or

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

Since question needs to be adjudicated in the instant proceedings has been elaborately dealt with and decided by the Division Bench of this court in

Smt. Sheela Devi’s Case supra, this Court sees no reason to go into this question again, especially when all the facts and relief, as prayed for, in

the instant petition are identical to that of Smt. Sheela Devi’s Case.

Consequently, in view of the aforesaid, present petition is allowed making the directions in Smt. Sheela Devi’s Case (supra) mutatis mutandi

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