The Punjab and Haryana High Court has held that employees who rendered long and uninterrupted service on part-time, temporary or contractual basis before regularisation are entitled to have such service counted as qualifying service for pension.

Once that service is reckoned, they cannot be denied the benefit of the Old Pension Scheme (OPS) merely because their regularisation took place after the introduction of the New Pension Scheme (NPS).

The court also extended OPS benefits to another category of employees whose recruitment process had commenced before the prescribed cut-off date but whose appointments were made later owing to administrative delays.

Justice Harpreet Singh Brar passed the ruling while disposing of a bunch of 95 writ petitions through a common judgment. The court classified the petitions into two categories. The first comprised employees appointed on part-time, temporary or contractual basis before January 1, 2006, but regularised thereafter. They were counting their pre-regularisation service for pension.

The second involved employees claiming OPS under the Haryana Government’s office memorandum dated May 8, 2023, on the ground that they had been appointed against posts advertised before the introduction of the New Pension Scheme.

Appearing for the petitioners in one of the matters, advocate Himanshu Malik contended that the petitioners’ pre-regularisation service could not be ignored while determining their pensionary entitlement, particularly in view of the settled legal position governing qualifying service and the state’s own policy framework.

Rejecting the state’s contention that the provisions of the Punjab Civil Services Rules excluded part-time service from qualifying service for pension, the court held that the issue already stood concluded by the Division Bench judgment in the case of “State of Haryana versus Jai Bhagwan”.

Justice Brar noted that the Supreme Court, while dismissing the state’s special leave petition, had kept the question of law open. But the Division Bench judgment continued to hold the field and remained binding on the High Court unless overruled or distinguished by a larger Bench.

Referring to the petitions before the Bench, Justice Brar observed one of the petitioners had rendered continuous service from February 15, 2002, on part-time basis and continued to serve without any interruption for more than a decade before being regularised on May 16, 2016.

“In these circumstances, this court is of the considered view that it would result in manifest injustice if the valuable service rendered by the petitioner prior to regularisation is excluded from consideration for the purpose of pensionary benefits merely because the initial engagement was on a part-time basis,” Justice Brar asserted.