KORATH POTHEN Vs. ASSISTANT ENGINEER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioner is a last grade Government servant (Road worker), who retired from service on 31/10/1994. He entered the service in 1962, as an N.M.R.(Non Muster Roll) worker. Petitioner was also regularised and brought into regular establishment and he was designated as Road Worker. According to him, his service from 1962 as an N.M.R. worker is not counted for the purpose of calculating the pensionary benefits, rather his service was reckoned for the pensionary benefit only from 1971.

(2.) The petitioner along with several other persons had approached this court claiming grade promotion by filing OP No.8929/1991. The petitioner herein was the 3rd petitioner in the said original petition. Grade promotion was denied to the petitioners therein since their services were reckoned only from a later date which will not enable them to get the grade promotion as they would not satisfy requisite number of years. The petitioner contended that he was on the roll in 1963 and as such his service from that date has to be reckoned for grade promotion. Dealing with this question, this court held with reference to the counter affidavit filed therein as follows:

(3.) Admittedly, petitioner has been given grade promotion also reckoning the service from 1963. If the petitioner is entitled to count his service as an N.M.R. worker for grade promotion from 1963, how he can be denied the length of service as N.M.R. worker from 1963 for the purpose of pensionary benefits alone for which there is no answer given. The counter affidavit merely states that this court has only directed to give the benefit of service for the purpose of grade promotion alone, but a person cannot be deemed to be in service from a particular date for grade promotion and for the purpose of pensionary benefit from a different date. If the petitioner is entitled to be treated as an NMR worker from 1963, necessarily for all purposes he should be treated as an NMR worker including for pensionary benefits. There cannot be two yardsticks, one for giving grade promotion and another for giving pensionary benefits. The length of service as an NMR worker must be the same. What is held in Exhibit P2 judgment is that he should be given grade promotion reckoning his service as NMR worker from 1963. If he is an NMR worker from 1963, then his service as NMR worker from 1963 has to be reckoned for calculating the length of service for pensionary benefits also.