VIJAYANT KUMAR Vs. STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Prayer in the present writ petition is to set aside the order/letter dated 21.1.2015 (Annexure P-11) passed by respondent No.4, vide which, the case of the petitioner for claiming pension has been sent back to the Executive Engineer, Public Health Division No.1, Hisar to re-send the case of the petitioner after obtaining special approval from the Finance Department as per Rules with a further prayer to calculate the period of qualifying service of the petitioner for grant of pension by including the period of leave (leave of kind due and half pay leave) also prayer has been made to direct respondent No.2 to re-calculate the qualifying service period of the petitioner by including the period of leaves of 617 days, which was sanctioned vide order dated 13.10.2011 (Annexure P-5) and 334 days, which was sanctioned as 'Half Pay Leave'.

(2.) Reply has been filed. As per the said reply, the net qualified service of the petitioner was 17 years 9 months 8 days. As such, the petitioner has no locus standi to claim pensionary benefits on his voluntary retirement as a Clerk as the pension become admissible on superannuation even if the retiring person has rendered less than 20 years qualifying service but in the present case, the petitioner had sought for voluntary retirement in terms of Rule 5.32-B of CSR Vol.II, which does not provide for pension for rendering service less than 20 years. Further, as per the proviso 2 to the Rule 5.32-B of CSR Vol.II, an employee has to give notice of voluntary retirement and has to satisfy himself that he has completed 25 years of qualifying service for pension before tendering his application for voluntary retirement under the Rules.

(3.) On the other hand, learned counsel for the petitioner placed reliance on the judgments rendered by this Court on the issue in hand in the cases of Nishan Singh vs. Transport Commissioner, Haryana , 1993(1) SCT 244, Ramesh Chand Kaushik vs. State of Haryana , 1994(1) SCT 227, Om Parkash Vashist vs. State of Haryana and others, 2002(2) SCT 80, Rajbir Singh vs. The State of Haryana and others , 1996(2) RSJ 559 and Ravi Dutt and others vs. State of Haryana and others , 2017(1) SCT 719 to contend that while allowing the pension to a person seeking voluntary retirement in spite of not having completed 20 years of qualifying service, the Court has held that once the respondents themselves have permitted an employee the luxury of voluntary retirement, then, the Department cannot turn around and take the objection that the employee has not achieved the mark of 20 years required for the grant of pensionary benefits.