D N GULATI Vs. STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner retired as a Superintending Engineer, P.W.D. B&R., Haryana, in March, 1980 and the competent authority did not pass any order for the payment of pension and gratuity to him. He filed civil writ petition 3571 of 1981 in this Court for the issuance of a direction to the respondents to sanction his pension and also for its commutation and also for payment of gratuity. During the pendency of this writ petition, a provisional order of pension and commutation dated 24.11.1982 (Annexure P1 with the writ petition) was issued and the total pension of the petitioner was fixed at Rs. 1121.12 and the commuted value of the pension was Rs. 373/- per month i.e. 1/3rd of the pension. A two per cent cut in the pension was imposed which was challenged by the petitioner in the aforementioned writ petition by amending the same. The provisional order made it clear that full pension would be restored to the petitioner on his attaining the age of 70 years as per Haryana Government letter dated 19.3.1981. Clause 7 of this letter dated 19.3.1981 which was the policy of the Government then reads as under :-

(2.) Civil Writ Petition 3571 of 1981 was allowed on December 7, 1983 and the respondent was directed to pay full pension to the petitioner and the two per cent cut imposed was restored. The petitioner then applied to the respondents to revise his pension and restore the cut as directed by this Court. A revised pension order restoring the rut was then issued on 28.5.1985 and the pension of the petitioner was fixed at Rs. 1144/- per month instead of Rs. 1121.12 as fixed provisionally. The petitioner had already applied for the commutation of 1/3rd of his pension according to his entitlement as per rules and, therefore, on the basis of bis revised pension, he was allowed to commute 1/3rd of the same at the rate of Rs. 381/- per month. After restoring his full pension and commuting the same, the respondents by an order dated 4.11.1985 (Annexure P5 with the writ petition) imposed the following condition in para 8 of the said letter:

(3.) This condition was imposed on the basis of letter dated 9.7.1985 issued by the Commissioner & Secretary to Government, Haryana, Finance Department, to the Accountant General, Haryana, Chandigarh (Annexure P 9 with the writ petition) whereby Fresh instructions/clarifications were issued by the State Government. According to these instructions, since the scheme for restoration of commuted portion of pension was made effective from 1.4.79, those pensioners who bad completed the age of 70 years by 31.3.79 and had surrendered the full value of their commuted portion of pension along with notional interest by that date their commuted portion of pension was to be restored w.e.f. 1.4,1979 and in the case of those who did not do so by 31.3.79, in their case, the commuted portion of pension was to be restored on completion of 70 years or surrendering the commuted portion of pension, along with notional interest, whichever was later.