Service law – Annual increments and pensionary benefits – Claim of – Appellants, daily-wage skilled workers rendered over 30 years of service and retired on 30th June in different years – Workers claimed the benefit of annual increment which fell due on 1st July of those years, after their retirement – Single Judge of the High Court allowed their claim, however, the Division Bench held that the appellants being daily wagers, not entitled to the benefit of increment, which would be extended to regular employees – Correctness: Held: Appellants rendered service in the Irrigation Department of the State in excess of 30 years – In this regard, by the Government Resolution, one of the reliefs granted to those daily-wage skilled workers who had completed 10 years of service or more as on 01.10.1988, was that such workers were to be considered permanent – Those workers were to be kept in the running payscale of the cadre concerned and the salary, dearness allowance, house rent allowance and local compensatory allowance were to be paid to them, they were entitled to retiral benefits, gratuity, employees provident fund, etc., in terms of the prevalent rules, and age of superannuation for such workers was fixed at 60 years and the time period spent by them in permanent employment was to be considered pensionable – Plea that the appellants were not entitled to grant of the increment only on the ground that they were daily wagers cannot be accepted – This argument seems to have been made, ignoring the Government Resolution and the benefits that flowed therefrom – Appellants filed their writ petition in the year 2022 itself, they would be covered by the modified clause (d), which provided that enhanced pension, by including one increment, would be payable for the period of 3 years prior to the month in which the writ petition was filed – Thus, the appellants entitled to the benefit of the increment and the pension payable, taking into account the said increment, in terms of the modified clause
(d) – Authorities concerned to abide by the time stipulations, as per the Court’s/Tribunal’s orders, for disbursing the arrears due and payable, failure to do so would entail payment of interest from the date of default. [Paras 6, 7-11]
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Headnotes prepared by: Nidhi Jain. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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