HSEB, PANCHKULA AND OTHERS Vs. RAGHBIR SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The present Letters Patent Appeal has been filed by the Haryana State Electricity Board against the judgment of the learned Single Judge dated 17.1.2001 whereby the respondent Raghbir Singh has been granted some monetary benefits on account of the decision rendered in Civil Appeal No. 12743 of 1996 arising out of SLP (C) No. 14910 of 1991 (Haryana State Electricity Board and another v. Dalipa and another). It is the case of the appellant-Board that as the respondent had joined services on work-charge basis, he was not entitled to any pensionary benefits and it had been so held by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the judgment rendered in Executive Engineer, PSEB and others v. Teja Singh, 2000 10 SCC 15 annexed as Annexure P-2 with CM No. 59-LPA of 2002.

(2.) We have heard the learned counsel for the parties and have also gone through the record of the case.

(3.) The respondent joined as workcharge employee with the Board on 1.11.1972 and admittedly retired in that capacity after 21 years i.e. 31.12.1993. It is the case of the respondent that his services ought to have been regularized under the policies Annexures P-2 and P-3 darted 30.4.1993 and 11.5.1993, respectively, and if the department had taken action within reasonable time, his case would have fallen under the aforesaid policies which would have entitled him to the benefit of pension as a regular employee. It is not in dispute before us that the age of superannuation the respondent was 60 years. The learned counsel for the respondent has accordingly relied upon a decision rendered by a Division Bench in Smt. Chameli v. The State of Haryana and others,1999 2 RSJ 688 contend that even where the employee had died before his services had been regularized, the High Court has issued a direction that services would be deemed to be regularised from the due date and in this view of the matter it was incumbent upon the appellant Board to reconsider the case of the respondent for regularization under the policies aforesaid.