(1.) By this petition the petitioners seek issuance of direction to the respondents to refix the pension of pre 1/1/2006 retirees. All the petitioners in this case are retired Government servants of pre 1/1/2006. Admittedly as per the report of the 06th Pay Commission it had been decided that the pension of all the pre 1/1/2006 retirees would be fixed at 50% of the initial pay and the pension of the petitioners was fixed accordingly. However, the persons who were still in employment represented against what they felt was an anomaly in their pay scale. Admittedly the Government of Punjab referred the said claim to the Anomaly Committee and admittedly the Anomaly Committee accepted the claim of the employees. Consequent thereto the letter (Annexure P-4) was issued whereby pay anomaly was removed as a result of which the initial pay also went up. The letter (Annexure P-4) has however stipulated that the benefits would be released only w.e.f. 1/12/2011. The claim in the present petition is that the pension of the petitioners has to be computed in terms of the initial pay now fixed by the letter (Annexure P-4).
(2.) The case of the respondents on the other hand is that whatever was the initial pay as on 1/1/2006, the same has been used for computing the pension of the petitioners and the pay scale which was granted w.e.f. 1/12/2011 would not apply to the petitioners.
(3.) In my considered opinion, the stand of the State of Punjab is erroneous. The present is not a case where the pay scale was revised but a case where an anomaly in the pay scale was removed (to the benefit of the employees). Once an anomaly is removed the logical effect is that the Government has accepted its mistake and has corrected the same and the anomaly would be held to apply from the date when the mistake occurred. The mere fact that the benefit of the recommendations of the Anomaly Committee were released from a later date would not change the nature of the exercise viz. the correction of a mistake.