NITIN Vs. MANAGING DIRECTOR, CENTRAL ORGANISATION

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner served as a Commissioned Officer in the Indian Navy from 16/08/1982 to 31/07/1990. On the basis of the service rendered, the petitioner received terminal gratuity. Thereafter for the period from 18/03/2008 to 29/02/2020 the petitioner served as Zilla Sainik Welfare Officer. Being an ex-serviceman (ESM), the petitioner was appointed as Officer-in-charge (OIC) ECHS Polyclinic, Nagpur from 03/04/2021. By the communication dtd. 15/12/2021 in the matter of eligibility for appointment of OIC ECHS Polyclinic, only retired Service Officers from the Indian Navy, Army and Indian Air Force were considered eligible subject to they drawing pension from Defence Estimates through Controller of Defence Accounts (CDA). The petitioner sought clarification in the matter vide communication dtd. 03/10/2022. According to the petitioner, the amount of gratuity received by a retired Officer was also part of pension. The Head Quarters, Maintenance Command sought clarification in the said matter on 21/12/2022 as to whether ESMs who had got their amount of gratuity from Defence estimates through CDA were also eligible for appointment as OIC since gratuity was also considered as pension. In view of Notification dtd. 20/12/2021 by virtue of which the Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules, 2021 (for short, the Rules of 2021) came to be published, the same indicated that the term "pension" was defined by Rule 3(t) as under :

(2.) The petitioner in person submits that having received the amount of gratuity pursuant to the service rendered as Commissioned Officer and as the term 'Pension' includes gratuity except when such term is viewed in contradistinction to gratuity, it ought to be held that the petitioner is eligible to seek appointment on the post of OIC. In the employment notice for the appointment of OIC Polyclinic, minimum qualification prescribed was therefore satisfied by the petitioner since he was a retired Service Officer from the Indian Navy and had received gratuity which was otherwise considered as pension from Defence estimates. It was submitted that the requirement prescribed by the employment notice that only those Service Officers who were drawing pension from Defence estimates through CDA were eligible was violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India. It was thus submitted that the respondents were not justified in restricting the eligibility criteria only to those Service Officers who had retired and were drawing pension from Defence estimates through CDA. The petitioner also was liable to be treated as eligible in that regard.

(3.) The learned Deputy Solicitor General of India for the respondents opposed aforesaid submission. According to him in view of the service rendered by the petitioner, he was granted terminal gratuity. To be eligible to receive pensionary benefits, the service to be rendered was for 20 years. As the petitioner did not render such service, he was not entitled to receive pension. In this regard attention was invited to the Navy (Pension) Regulations, 1964 (for short, Regulations of 1964) wherein it was stated that the minimum service required for qualifying for pension was 15 years in case of late entrants and 20 years in other cases. The total service rendered by the petitioner as a Commissioned Officer was 7 years 11 months and 15 days. It was further pointed out that the Pension Payment Order of the petitioner was drawn by the office of the Accountant General (A & C)-II Maharashtra in the capacity as District Sainik Welfare Officer. For this reason it could not be said that the petitioner was drawing pension from Defence estimates through CDA. The eligibility of the petitioner had been duly considered and it was found that since the petitioner was not drawing pension from Defence estimates, he was not eligible for being appointed on the post of OIC Polyclinic.