Srinagar, February 5: In a significant ruling with wide implications for government employees appointed around the 2010 pension transition, the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), Jammu Bench, has directed the Jammu and Kashmir administration to restore the Old Pension Scheme (OPS) for 255 employees who were shifted to the New Pension Scheme (NPS) due to delays in their appointments.
The case relates to lecturers and other government employees recruited through J&K Public Service Commission advertisements issued between 2005 and 2009, whose appointments were delayed beyond January 1, 2010, following the introduction of the contributory pension scheme.
Allowing a batch of petitions, the Tribunal held that employees cannot be denied OPS benefits merely because their appointment orders were issued after January 1, 2010, when the recruitment process itself had begun under the old pension regime. The delay in finalising selections, the Tribunal said, was entirely attributable to the authorities and could not operate to the prejudice of candidates.
The judgment, delivered by Judicial Member Rajinder Singh Dogra, observed that the advertisements pursuant to which the applicants had applied were issued between 2005 and 2009 — a period when OPS governed service conditions in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. The advertisements did not contain any clause indicating that a future pension regime would apply in case of delayed appointments.
The petitioners were represented by Advocate Sunil Sethi and advocate Waheed Choudhary.
Rejecting the government’s argument that pension eligibility depends solely on the date of appointment, the Tribunal ruled that pension rights crystallise at the initiation of the recruitment process, not at the stage of appointment orders. “The respondents’ reliance on the mere date of appointment is misplaced,” the order said, adding that service conditions must be assessed with reference to the date of advertisement, accrual of vacancies, and commencement of selection
The Tribunal further noted in 90-page judgement that several similarly placed candidates appointed under the same advertisements had already been granted OPS, and denying the same benefit to the applicants amounted to discrimination in violation of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution
Calling the government’s action “arbitrary, discriminatory and legally unsustainable”, the Tribunal directed the administration to convert the applicants from NPS to OPS in accordance with pension rules applicable prior to the enforcement of SRO 400 of 2009.
It also ordered the transfer of the entire NPS corpus — including employee and employer contributions along with accrued interest — into the General Provident Fund (GPF) accounts of the applicants
The employees will be entitled to all consequential benefits under OPS, including qualifying service benefits, pensionary computation under old rules, family pension, gratuity and other retiral advantages, the Tribunal said.
The administration has been given three months to complete the exercise and issue all consequential orders. However, the Tribunal clarified that the relief is confined to the applicants before it and shall not automatically apply to non-applicants or similarly situated employees, whose claims would have to be examined independently
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