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ORIGINAL JURISDICTION: Writ Petition No. 3739 of 1985. (Under Article 32 of the Constitution of India). A.K. Goel and Ajit Pudiserry for the Petitioner. B. Datta, Additional Solicitor' General, P.P. Singh and Miss A. Subhashini for the Respondents.

The Judgment of the Court was delivered by VENKATARAMIAH, J. The question involved in this case is whether an employee of an autonomous body established under the auspices of the Central Government is entitled to claim the benefit of the period of service rendered by him in a pensionable post under the Central Government prior to his service being absorbed in the autonomous body for computing qualifying service for purposes of pension. The petitioner R.L. Marwaha entered the service of the Central Government on a temporary basis on 4.10.1950 and worked as an Upper Division Clerk in the pay scale of Rs.80-5-120-8-200-10/2-220 in the office of the Settlement Commissioner (Claims Wing) under the Ministry of Rehabilita- tion, Union of India and he continued to hold that post upto 23.11. 1953 (F.N.). He, having been appointed in the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (hereinafter referred to as 'the ICAR'), which is an autonomous body sponsored by the Central Government, to a higher post of Assistant in the scale of pay of Rs. 160-450 joined the service of the ICAR as a fresh entrant on the same date that is 23.11.1953 (F.N.). He was not allowed to carry forward the leave that he had earned and was declared quasi-permanent as an Assistant in the ICAR with effect from 17.1.1957. The post held by the petitioner under the Central Government before he entered the service of the ICAR was a pensionable post and the post or posts held by him in the ICAR were also pensionable posts. The petitioner retired from the service of the ICAR on September 30, 1980 after attaining the age of superannuation, i.e., 58 years. On retirement the petitioner was accorded pensionary benefits reckoning his qualifying service from 23.11.1953 to 30.9.1980. The petitioner, as some others who had also retired from the service of the ICAR had been agitating before the authorities to count the period of service put in by him between 4.10.1950 and23.11. 1953 in the Central Government as part of the qualifying service and to compute his pensionary benefits on that basis. The petitioner had applied to the ICAR even before his retirement requesting it to count his service in the Central GoVernment as part of his qualifying service for pension. The petitioner received a reply from the ICAR stating that according to the then existing policy the Government had not accepted any pension- ary liability in cases like that of the petitioner and that there were no rules authorising the ICAR to accept the charge of pensionary liability in respect of the period of his service rendered in the Central Government. Under the orders which were in force in 1984 the posi- tion as regards counting of service rendered elsewhere was as follows:

The writ petition is resisted by the respondents--the Union of India and the ICAR. It is pleaded on behalf of the respondents that the petitioner was not entitled to count the period of service rendered by him under the Government of India as a part of his qualifying service for purposes of pension since he was only a temporary Government servant when he was working in the office of the Settlement Commis- sioner, that he had joined the service of the ICAR as a fresh entrant and that there was no Government policy which entitled the petitioner to count the period of his Govern- ment service as part of qualifying service for pension before the Government order dated 29.8.1984 was passed. The fact that the petitioner was a temporary Government servant when he was working in the Central Government is immaterial because the Government order itself says that the service rendered by a Central Government employee under the Govern- ment would be allowed to be counted towards pension under the autonomous body irrespective of whether the employee was temporary or permanent in Government provided he is later on confirmed in the autonomous body. This condition is satis- fied in this case. It is admitted that the petitioner was treated as a new entrant when he joined the service of the ICAR on the same day on which he ceased to be the employee of the Central Government. But the fact that the petitioner joined the service of the ICAR as a new entrant cannot again be an impediment for extending the benefit of the Government order dated August 29, 1984 because every employee who leaves the service of the Central Government to join the service of the ICAR has to be treated as a new entrant at the ICAR because it is not a department of the Central Government but a registered body. In fact there cannot be a transfer to the ICAR from the Central Government. There is no substance in this contention of the respondents. There is no dispute that the ICAR though it is a body registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1960, is a body which is sponsored, financed and controlled by the Central Government. There has been a continuous mobility of personnel between Central Government departments and autonomous bodies, like the ICAR both ways and the Government thought, and rightly so, that it would not be just to deprive an employee who is later on absorbed in the service of the autonomous body, like the ICAR the benefit of the service rendered by him earlier in the Central Government for purposes of computation of pen- sion and similarly the benefit of service rendered by an employee who is later on absorbed in the Central Government service the benefit of the service rendered by him earlier in the autonomous body for purposes of computation of pen- sion. If that was the object of issuing the notification then the benefit of such notification should be extended to all pensioners who had rendered service earlier in the Central Government or in the autonomous body as the case may be with effect from the date of the said Government order. Now let us take the case of a person who had rendered serv- ice under the Central Government between January 1, 1953 and July 1, 1955 but who has retired from service of the ICAR in 1985. There is no dispute that such a person gets the bene- fit of the service put in by him under the Central Govern- ment for purposes of his pension. But another .pensioner who has put in service under the Central Government during the same period will not get similar concession if he has re- tired prior to the date of the Government order if Paragraph 7 of that order is applied to him. The result will be that whereas in the first case there is pensionary liability of the Central Government in the second case it does not exist although the period of service under the Central Government is the same. This discrimination arises on account of the Government order. There is no justification for denying the benefit of the Governmentorder to those who had retired prior to the date on which the Government order was issued. The respondents have not furnished any acceptable reason in support of their case, except saying that the petitioner was not entitled to the benefit of the Government order because the order says that it would not be applicable to those who had retired prior to the date on which it was issued. In the absence of any explanation which is worthy of consideration it has to be held that the classification of the pensioners who were working in the Government/ autonomous bodies into two classes merely on the basis of the date of retirement as unconstitutional as it bears no nexus to the object to be achieved by the order.