SAURASHTRA UNIVERSITY Vs. MANJULABEN NARENDRABHAI LAKTARIA WIFE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) SINCE the appeal as well as the writ petition raise common questions of law and fact regarding entitlement of a retired University employee(who unfortunately passed away during pendency of these proceedings) to pensionary benefits and are directed against the same judgement of the Gujarat University Tribunal, with consent of the learned advocates for the parties, the appeal and the writ petition have been heard together and are being disposed of by this common judgement.

(2.) RESPONDENT no.1 in the appeal as well as writ petition -N.T. Lakhtariya(here -in -after referred to as "the employee"), was employed as an Assistant Teacher in Saurashtra High school from 1st April, 1958 to 16th July, 1973. He was thereafter, employed as Assistant Teacher in Lal Bahadur Shastri Vidayalaya at Rajkot from 17th July, 1973 to 31st January, 1980. Both the institutions were grant in aid schools. Thereafter, the employee was appointed by the Saurashtra University as the Project Officer in the Adult Education Centre from 1st February, 1980 and subsequently, promoted as Assistant Director in the same department on 30th June, 1992. The employee continued to hold the said post till 31st January, 1998, when he retired upon attaining the age of superannuation i.e. at the age of 60 years after rendering 40 years service. Since he was not paid pension and other retiral benefits as claimed by him, he approached the Gujarat University Services Tribunal by filing Application no.12/1999. The Tribunal by its impugned judgement dated 28th September, 2001, directed the Saurashtra University to get the employee's pension fixed with the assistance of the State Government and to pay the same to the employee and also directed that University Grants Commission (here -in -after referred to as "UGC") shall thereafter, pay the said amount to the University. Saurashtra University filed Special Civil Application No. 952/2002 challenging the said order of the Tribunal. This petition came to be dismissed by the learned Single Judge by order dated 7th May, 2002 with a minor modification of the order of the Tribunal. The UGC challenged the said order by filing Special Civil Application No.5403/2003 which came to be admitted and by interim order dated 10th January, 2005, a Division Bench of this Court granted interim stay of the direction of the Tribunal requiring the UGC to pay pension to the employee through the University. Since the petition filed by the University was already dismissed, the employee had instituted execution proceedings before the Tribunal. In view of the interim stay operating in favour of UGC, the execution proceedings continued against the University. Thereupon, the University filed Letters Patent Appeal with an application for condonation of delay of about 482 days. That application came to be dismissed. Aggrieved by the said order, Saurashtra University moved the Hon'ble Supreme Court. The University succeeded in the appeal. The Apex Court by order dated 25th November, 2005 set aside the order of this Court dismissing Letters Patent Appeal on the ground of limitation, remitted the case back to this Court for deciding Letters Patent Appeal on merits, after condoning the delay in filing the Letters Patent Appeal. While passing this order, Apex Court took into account the fact that the main issue was already pending for consideration of this Court at the instance of the UGC. In view of the above order of the Apex Court, the Special Civil Application filed by the UGC and appeal filed by Saurashtra University are listed before us for considering the challenge to the order of the Tribunal on merits.

(3.) MR . Mitul Shelat, learned advocate for UGC submitted that the UGC is a statutory body set up in 1956 to make provisions for coordination and determination of standards of teaching in Universities and for this purpose the Commission launches various Schemes to be run by Universities and pays grants to the Universities for this purpose. The UGC has no funds of its own but receives funds from Government of India to be given by way of grants to Universities for implementing such schemes. The UGC had accordingly launched National Adult Education Programmes in the year 1978 for involving Universities and colleges through their students and teachers to provide education to such section of the communities which were earlier denied access to such opportunities. A number of Universities and colleges in various States of the country were involved in this programme. The Universities accordingly established Adult Education and Extension Services Centres. For employing teaching as well as non -teaching staff in such Centres, UGC provided grants to Universities and issued guidelines inter -alia providing that the teaching as well as non teaching staff of such Adult Education Centres be treated like other employees of the University. He submitted that these grants were provided for paying salary to the teaching and non teaching staff employed by the University for running these Centres but the UGC never employed any staff. It is therefore, vehemently submitted that Tribunal erred in directing the UGC to reimburse the pension to be paid by the University to the employee concerned(i.e. respondent no.1 herein).