CHANDRASEKHARAN Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioners in both the writ petitions were personnels in the Defence Service of the Union. On retirement from the Defence Service they got themselves re-employed; the petitioner in OP No. 8242 of 1991 in the service of State Bank of Travancore and the petitioner in OP No. 10234 of 1991 in the service of Police Department of the Kerala State . THE question that has been raised in these writ petitions in substance is the validity or otherwise of the Office memorandum dated 29. 12. 1976 (Ext. P3 in OP No. 8242 of 1991) issued by the government of India, Ministry of Finance. THE petitioners claim retirement benefits by virtue of this Order.

(2.) UNDER R. 353 and 354 of the Central Treasury Rules, payment of Central Civil Pension is subject to submission of a declaration in the prescribed form to the effect that the pensioner is not in receipt of any remuneration for serving in any capacity in an establishment of the Central government or a State Government or a Government UNDERtaking or Corporation or an autonomous body or from a local fund during the period for which the amount of pension is claimed. In other words, on re-employment the pensioner is required to furnish necessary particulars of re-employment to the Pension distributing Officer. However, the Government of India issued certain directions as per the Office Memorandum dated 25. 12. 1976 simplifying the conditions attached to disbursement of pension on re-employment. By the said order it has been decided in supersessio n of all earlier communications issued by the Department of Expenditure of the Ministry of finance that a pensioner on re-employment may continue to draw the amount of relief along with the basic pension but the amount of relief so paid would be deducted by the employer from the pensioner's emoluments paid on re-employment. For this purpose, the total emoluments (including dearness allowance etc.) will be first determined by the employer and from the net emoluments becoming payable to the pensioner, the relief admissible on the pension will be deducted.

(3.) SUBSEQUENTLY, are view petition has been filed before the Supreme Court seeking to review the judgment rendered by it in Vasudevan Pillay's case, supra (1995) 2 SCC 32 ). The Supreme Court again evaluated the earlier judgment and the review petition has been dismissed as per the decision in National ex-servicemen Coordination Committee v. Controller General of Defence Accounts (1996) (10) SCC 496 ). While rejecting the review petition the Supreme Court observed: "we would, however, desire the Union of India to apply its mind to the question whether ex-servicemen could be treated differently from others insofar as the matter at hand is concerned, in view of their service conditions said to be not attractive. We would also desire the central Government to sympathetically consider the question of non- realisation of amount already disbursed to re-employed ex-servicemen on the aforesaid account. " (Emphasis supplied) I do not hesitate to adopt the above observation in the present cases also. In view of what is said above, the writ petitions are dismissed. . .