Tripura High Court
Sri Subodh Ranjan Ray vs The State Of Tripura & Others on 13 March, 2020
Author: Akil Kureshi
Bench: Akil Kureshi
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HIGH COURT OF TRIPURA
AGARTALA
WP(C) No.216/2020
Sri Subodh Ranjan Ray
----Petitioner(s)
Versus
The State of Tripura & others
-----Respondent(s)
For Petitioner(s) : Mrs. Sujata Deb (Gupta), Advocate, Mrs. Sulagna Nandy, Advocate.
For Respondent(s) : Mr. Dipankar Sharma, Addl. G.A. HON'BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE MR. AKIL KURESHI Order 13/03/2020 Petitioner has prayed for following substantive reliefs:
"(i) Issue Rule upon the respondents to show cause as to why a writ in the nature of mandamus and/or order/orders and/or direction/directions of the nature shall not be issued whereby directing the respondents for providing full pension to the petitioner on completion of 30 years service by reading down/striking the following words "on or after 01.01.2009" from the Rule 5 of Tripura State Civil Services (Revised Pension) Rules, 2009.
(ii) Issue Rule upon the respondents to show cause as to why a writ in the nature of mandamus and/or order/orders and/or direction/directions of like nature shall not be issued whereby reading down/striking the following words "on or after 01.01.2009" from the Rule 5 of Tripura State Civil Services (Revised Pension) Rules, 2009.
(iii) Issue Rule upon the respondents to show cause as to why a writ in the nature of mandamus and/or order/orders and/or direction/directions of like nature shall not be issued whereby directing the respondents to recalculate and re-determine the Page 2 of 5 pensionary benefits of the petitioner giving the benefits of full pension on the basis of 30 years of service and pay the arrear amount."
Petitioner points out that his case is covered by a decision of this Court dated 24/31.01.2020 passed in WP(C) No.430 of 2019 and other connected petitions in case of Sri Binoy Bhushan Nag vrs. The State of Tripura & others, in which under identical fact situation this Court had made following observations:
"[17] Having thus noted two clear streams of decisions of Supreme Court depending on facts and circumstances of the case, we would now have to decide in which category the present petitions fit. Going back to the facts of case on hand, undisputedly the petitioners are pension retirees. At the time of their respective retirements the pension scheme was very much in force. They are not only governed by the pension scheme, but are also receiving such pension post their retirements. They would also be obviously receiving periodic revisions in such pensions either upon framing of fresh revision of pay rules or upon declaration of periodic dearness relief on the basic pension. We must therefore, assess the validity of the cut-off date of 01.01.2009 contained in Rule 5 of ROP 2009 which reduced the qualifying service from 33 years to 25 years for admissibility of full pension on such basis. By all means this is a liberalized formula. From the existing requirement of a minimum 33 years of qualifying service for receiving full pension, such requirement was reduced to 25 years of such service. This rule and the amendment that is introduced in the existing pension formula, did not include any new class of employees or retirees who would be brought within the fold of the pension scheme. In clear terms thus this is not a Page 3 of 5 case where either a whole new pension scheme was introduced by the employer or an existing pension scheme was expanded in such a manner that it would bring within its fold employees or retirees who were previously not covered under the pension scheme. Being a liberalized pension formula, the case of the petitioners would fall in the line of decisions starting with D.S. Nakara(supra), Subrata Sen(supra) and All Manipur Pensioners Association (supra). This requirement therefore, that only those employees who superannuate or retire on or after 1.1.2009 will get the benefit of full pension upon completion of 25 years of qualifying service, must therefore, be held to be unconstitutional. Subject to fulfillment of such requirement, the petitioners must receive higher pension in terms of Rule 5 even though they have retired before 1.1.2009. We may recall, the ROP 2009 were introduced with effect from 01.01.2006 and except contrary provisions are made, applied from such date. All the petitioners had retired after 1.1.2006 and were thus covered by other provisions of ROP 2009.
[18] A question of gross delay of filing the present group of petitions must be addressed before granting final relief. Undisputed facts are that though the ROP 2009 were promulgated on 1.1.2009, the petitioners did little to ventilate their grievances before an appropriate forum till filing of the present petitions. Learned counsel for the petitioners however, submitted that representations were made in the year 2015 and 2018 which were not decided by the respondents. By settled law making of series of representations would not save limitation or cannot be cited as a reason for approaching the Court after gross delay and latches. In any case, the first representation on record is of the year 2015 which itself was six years after the promulgation of the impugned rule. However, the petitioners are Page 4 of 5 seeking higher pension which accrues on month to month basis and is thus a continuing cause. Only on the ground of delay and latches therefore, these petitions cannot be thrown out without any relief to the petitioners. They must however, forego the past benefits flowing from this decision."
Eventually the petitions were disposed of with following directions:
"[19] In the result, all petitions are disposed of with following directions and declarations:
(1) The cut-off date of 01.01.2009 contained in Rule 5 of the ROP 2009 for applicability of reduced length of qualifying service for receiving full pension is held unconstitutional.
(2) Consequently, all the petitioners who have retired after 01.01.2006 would receive the benefit flowing from Rule 5 of ROP 2009 irrespective to the fact that they retired prior to 1.1.2009.
(3) The respondents shall verify the service details of the petitioners, re-fix their pension in terms of Rule 5 of the ROP 2009. Such pension fixation and its periodic revision would be done on notional basis from the date of the retirement till the date of filing of the petitions after which all the petitioners would be entitled to actual difference in pension prospectively. Entire exercise shall be completed within a period of four months from today."
Respondent No.2 shall consider the fact of the case of the petitioner and examine the decision of this Court in case of Sri Binoy Bhushan Nag (supra) and if found that the decision of this Court in the said case covers the present situation, shall give the effect of the directions contained in the said judgment to the petitioner also.
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This exercise shall be completed within a period of 3(three) months from today.
The petitioner shall serve a copy of this petition along with the order on the said respondent within a week from today.
With these observations, petition is disposed of. Pending application(s), if any, also stands disposed of.
(AKIL KURESHI), CJ Pulak