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Before considering which of these two rival contentions is correct, it would be contentions to relate first the relevant facts which have given rise to this controversy.

Prior to the coming into force of the Constitution of India on January 26, 1950, Hyderabad was an Indian State within the meaning of that term as defined in section 311(1) of the Government of India Act, 1935, and its Ruler within the meaning of that term as defined in the said section 311(1) was the Nizam. The Appellant in Civil Appeal No. 2627 of 1977, Ahmed Hussain Khan, joined the service of the Public Work Department of the erstwhile Indian State of Hyderabad in the year 1945 and retired on April 5, 1972, as Chief Engineer, Electricity (operation), Andhra Pradesh State Electricity Board. At the time of his retirement he was drawing a salary of Rs. 1,980 per month. By a Government Order, namely, G.O. MS No. 664, Public Works (E) Department, dated June 22, 1973, this Appellant's pension after deducting the pension equivalent of death-cum-retirement gratuity was fixed at Rs. 801.96 per month on the basis that the maximum amount of pension admissible under Rule 299(1)(b) of the Hyderabad Civil Services Rules was Rs. 1,000 per month. By another Government order, namely, G.O. MS No. 769, Public Works (Pen I) Department, dated July 2, 1913, the amount of pension payable to this Appellant was fixed at Rs. 683.11 per month after deducting the pension equivalent of death-cum- retirement gratuity on the basis that by a Notification dated February 3, 1971, amending the said clause (b) of Rule 299(1), the amount of maximum pension admissible under the said clause was restricted to Rs. 877.15. Ahmed Hussain Khan thereupon filed a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India in the High Court of Andhra Pradesh, being Writ Petition No. 7113 of 1973, challenging the said amendment made to clause (b) of Rule 299(1) inter alia on the ground that under the proviso to sub-section (7) of section 115 of the States Reorganization Act, 1956, the said amendment required the previous approval of the Central Government which had not been obtained. D The Appellant in Civil Appeal No. 2628 of 1977, S. Gopalan, joined the service of the Public Works Department of the erstwhile Indian State of Hyderabad in the year 1942 and retired on April, 14, 1973, as Chief Engineer, Major Irrigation and General Public Works Department, Government of Andhra Pradesh. At the time of his retirement he was drawing a salary of Rs. 2,180 per month. By a Government order, namely, G.O. MS No. 462, P.W., (L1) Department, dated May 8, 1973, his pension was fixed at Rs. 857.15 per month pursuant to the said amended clause (b) of Rule 299(1). He thereupon filed a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India in the High Court of Andhra Pradesh, being Writ Petition No. 7114 of 1973, on the same grounds as the Appellant Ahmed Hussain Khan Both these writ petitions were heard together and disposed of by a common judgment by a learned Single Judge of the said High Court. The aforesaid contention raised in the said writ petition found favour with the learned Single Judge and he allowed both the said writ petitions and issued a writ of mandamus m each of them directing the State of Andhra Pradesh to fix the pension payable to the Appellant in each of these two Appeals from The date he became eligible for pension, that is, from the date on which he retired from Government service, on the basis that the maximum pension admissible under the said Rule 299(1)(b) of the Hyderabad Civil Services Rules was Rs. 1,000 per month and not Rs. 857.15 per month. The learned Single Judge also directed the State of Andhra Pradesh to pay the costs of both these writ petitions. The appeals filed by the State of Andhra Pradesh against the said judgment and orders of the learned Single Judge, being Writ Appeals Nos. 835 of 1974 and 920 of 1974, were allowed, with no order as to costs, by a Division Bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court by a common judgment holding that a letter No. S/8/73-SR(S) dated April 28, 1973, from the Joint Secretary to the Government of India, Cabinet Secretariat, Department of Personnel and A.R., to the Secretary to the Government of Andhra Pradesh, Finance Department, was in the nature of a previous approval given by the Central Government within the meaning of the proviso to sub-section (7) of section 115 of the States Reorganization Act, 1956, to the impugned amendment to clause (b) of Rule 299(1) of the Hyderabad Civil Services Rules. The correctness of the judgment and orders of the Division Bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court are assailed before us in these two Appeals.

At the hearing of these two Appeals, Mr. Markandeya, learned Counsel for the Appellant in each of these two Appeals, submitted that the said letter dated April 28, 1973, from the Joint Secretary to the Government of India, did not amount to the previous approval of the Central Government to the amendment made by the State Government to clause (b) of Rule 299(1) and the said amendment was, therefore, invalid and. inoperative. He further submitted that the right to receive pension was property under sub- clause (f) of clause (1) of Article 19 and Clause (1) of Article 31 of the Constitution of India and the State Government could not withhold it by a mere executive order. So far as Appellant, Ahmed Hussain Khan, was concerned, Mr. Markandeya further submitted that his pension having already been fixed under the said Rule 299(1)(b) at Rs. 801.96 per month, on the basis that the maximum pension admissible under the said Rule was Rs. 1,000 per month, it could not subsequently be unilaterally reduced to Rs. 683.11 per month on the basis that the maximum pension admissible under the said Rule 299(1)(b) was Rs. 857.15 per month as was purported to be done by the said Government order dated July 2, 1973, without according the said Appellant an opportunity of showing cause against the same.

What is pertinent for our purpose is that under the proviso to sub-section (7) of section 115 of the States Reorganization Act, the conditions of service applicable immediately before the appointed day, namely, November 1, 1956, in the case of any person referred to inter aila in sub-section (2) of section 115 cannot be varied to his disadvantage except with the previous approval of the Central Government. Pension is a condition of service as held by this Court in State of Madhya Pradesh and others v. Shardul Singh and, therefore, if any rules are to be made by the Governor of a State varying the amount of pension to the disadvantage of those who were in service on the appointed day, such rules would not be valid without the previous approval of the Central Government. The amendment made by the said Notification reduced the amount of pension payable to Government servants who were in the service of the erstwhile State of Hyderabad and whose services continued under the principal successor State to the State of Hyderabad, namely, the State of Andhra Pradesh. The contention of the Respondent, however, is that such approval has, in fact, been given by the Central Government by the said letter dated April 28, 1973. This contention found favour with the Division Bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court. The said letter dated April 28, 1973, was in reply to a letter dated March 13, 1973, written by the Joint Secretary to the Government of Andhra Pradesh, Finance Department. In the said letter dated March 13, 1973, after referring to the Demonetization Act and the Rules it was stated that there was an omission to convert the maximum limit of pension of O.S. Rs. 1,000 into I.G. Currency but in practice, how ever, the figure was treated as O.S. Rs. 1,000 and all pensions sanctioned before November 1, 1956, were restricted to Rs. 857.15 being the equivalent in I.G. Currency of O.S. Rs. 1,000. Incidentally, there is nothing on the record to bear out this statement. The issue of the said erratum and the judgment the Andhra Pradesh High Court striking it down were then recited in the said letter. It was then stated that the Government held the view that as no one was paid more than Rs. 857.15 in I.G. Currency prior to November 1, 1956, the condition of service that the maximum pension admissible should be Rs. 1,000 in I.G. Currency did not exist and that it came into being only by virtue of the judgment delivered by the Andhra Pradesh High Court In 1970, that is, in the said writ petition filed by Daulat Rai and two others, and that it was, therefore, felt by the State Government that what it had done was not a variation in the conditions of service of any employee to his disadvantage but an action taken to give effect to an actual situation that existed prior to November 1, 1956. The said letter then went on to state:

The Division Bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court took the view that "when all the facts relating to the pension admissible to an employee governed by the Hyderabad Civil Service Rules were placed before the Government of India and when gave a considered opinion, that opinion is a prior approval satisfying the requirement of section 115 (7)". We are unable to follow this line of reasoning, By the said letter dated March 13, 1973, the Government of India was requested to accord approval to the said amendment if it considered it necessary so to do. By its said reply dated April 28, 1973, the Government of India categorically stated that the said amendment did not require its prior approval under the said section 115 and, therefore, did not give any approval to the said amendment. To equate the not giving of approval with a prior approval satisfying the requirements of the proviso to sub-section (7) of section 115 appears to us to be a contradiction in terms as also to say that a letter written on April 28, 1973, was a prior approval given to an amendment which was made more than two years earlier on February 3, 1971. The Statement made in the said letter dated March 13, 1973 that by the said amendment the conditions of service were not being varied was incorrect because by the said amendment the maximum pension of Rs 1,000 per month in I.G. Currency was being reduced to the equivalent in that currency of O.S. Rs. 1,000 per month, namely, to Rs. 857.15 per month and that too with retrospective effect from the date of the coming into force of the rules, namely, October 1, 1954. For such an amendment the previous approval of the Central Government was required by the proviso to sub-section (7) of section 115. Such approval was not given and the amendment made by the said Notification was, therefore, invalid and inoperative so far as it concerned persons referred to in sub-section (1) and (2) of section 115 of the States Reorganization Act. The question whether even with respect to persons other than those referred it in the said sub-sections, the said Notification in so far as it is retrospective is valid does not arise in these Appeals and does not fall to be decided.