Jharkhand High Court: Sanjay Kumar Dwivedi J., allowed the petition and held that past service of the petitioner shall be taken into consideration for calculating his retiral benefits.
The factual matrix of the instant petition that in the year 1981, an advertisement was published by the Principal, Bokaro Steel City College, Bokaro for filling up the vacancies for different posts. The petitioner was selected and joined the post on 28-05-1985. The service book of the petitioner also depicted that the date of joining of the petitioner is May, 1985. However, when the 5th Pay revision pay fixation and the chart has been issued by the respondent in which the date of joining has been stated as 1-8-1993 and have substantially reduced the scale of the petitioner.
Learned counsel for the petitioner, Saket Upadhayay submitted that based on all the documents the date of joining of the petitioner is 28.05.1985 and that the past service of an employee who has worked for such a long period cannot be denied to be taken for other benefits. In this regard, reliance has been placed upon the case of Jharkhand State Forest Development Corporation Ltd. v. Chandreshwar Prasad, 2014 1 JCR 732 (Jhr).
Learned counsel for the respondent, I.S. Choudhary submitted that the appointment with effect from 1985 was temporary and as such the petitioner is not entitled to other retiral benefits. She relied upon the case of Kashi Yadav v. State of Jharkhand, 2017 SCC OnLine Jhar 780, which was distinguished by this Bench as not applicable to facts and circumstances of the present case. Further, she relied upon the case State of Karnataka v. M.L. Kesari, (2010)9 SCC 247 wherein the Supreme Court considered about the appointment which are illegal and irregular. The Bench in this Court held that this judgment, in this case, the appointment of the petitioner cannot be said to be irregular and illegal in view of the fact that the University issued admit card and subsequently the appointment has been made. The counsel for the respondent further placed reliance upon State of Karnataka v. Uma Devi wherein it was considered that the writ petitioners were working as a casual employee. The Bench herein held that the petitioner appointment was made after following the due process of law hence he was not a casual employee.
In view of the above, the Court held that the appointment of the petitioner was not irregular and illegal because after advertisement and following the due process of law the petitioner was appointed on that post. The date of joining is held to be 28-05-1985 and consequently, past service of the petitioner shall be taken into consideration for calculating his retiral benefits.[Nandeshwar Ram v. State of Jharkhand, 2019 SCC OnLine Jhar 906, decided on 10-07-2019]