CWP No. 13430 of 2008 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH. CWP No. 13430 of 2008 Date of decision : February 23, 2010 Union of India .....Petitioner Vs. Bachittar Singh and others ....Respondents ****** CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE M.M. KUMAR HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE JITENDRA CHAUHAN Present: Mr. Puneet Jindal, Advocate Addl. Standing Counsel for Union of India for the petitioner. Mr. H.S. Saini, Advocate for the respondents. 1. To be referred to the Reporters or not? 2. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? M.M. Kumar, J. The instant petition is directed against order dated 14.11.2007 (P-3), passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal, Chandigarh Bench, Chandigarh (for brevity, 'the Tribunal') in OA No.492/PB/2005. The claim made before the Tribunal was that the railway employees were entitled to interest on arrears of pensionary benefits. The question is concerning the date of calculating interest. The parties have various rounds of litigation. It is appropriate to mention that all the applicant-respondent Nos.1 to 28 have retired from service of Railways as Drivers in different grades prior to 5.12.1988. A CWP No. 13430 of 2008 2 notification dated 5.12.1988 was issued reducing the quantum of rent allowance to 45% for the purposes of calculation of average emoluments and other pensionary benefits instead of prevailing rate of 75% of the running allowance. The notification was given retrospective effect from 1.4.1979. The matter was settled by a Full Bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal, Bangalore Bench in a decision rendered in the case of Sri C.R. Rangadhamaiah v. Chairman, Railway Board, 1994 (2) (CAT) All India Services Law Journal 68. The said decision was affirmed by a Constitution Bench of Hon'ble the Supreme Court in the case of Chairman, Railway Board v. C.R. Rangadhamaiah, (1997) 6 SCC 623. It has been held that vested rights which have been acquired by the parties could not be withdrawn by making an amendment retrospectively. The directions issued by the Full Bench of the Tribunal with regard to payment of arrears and interest attained finality, which were as under :- “(1) The respondents shall recomputed the pension and other retiral benefits of the applicants or their L.Rs. in accordance with Rule 2544 as was in force before it was amended by Notification dated 5.12.1988. (2) The arrears due to the applicants/L.Rs. on the basis of the recomputation as aforesaid shall be calculated and paid. (3) These directions shall be carried out within a period of three months from the date of receipt of the copy of this order. (4) If the amounts due to the applicants/L.Rs. are not paid within the prescribed time, the amounts due shall be CWP No. 13430 of 2008 3 paid with interest at 12% per annum from the date of this order till the date of payment. (5) The applicants shall be entitled to costs at the rate of Rs.500/- in respect of each application. (6) The payment of pension and retirement benefits as per the aforesaid directions shall stand regulated/adjusted in accordance with the orders/directions as may be issued by the Supreme Court in SLP No.10373/90 against the decision of the Ernakulam Bench of the Tribunal in Application No.K-269/88.” The judgment of the Tribunal was not implemented and it was only on 21.7.2004 that the respondent Railway Board issued an order for implementation of the judgment and extended the benefit of interest on arrears to the employees irrespective of the fact whether anyone of them had approached the Court or not. It is appropriate to mention that earlier to the aforesaid order a circular dated 14.10.1997 was issued. However, the payment of interest on the arrears was restricted vide circular dated 17.4.1998, issued by the Board limiting only to those who had approached the Tribunal or the Court (A-6). Various employees of the Railways felt aggrieved and approached the Tribunal for grant of interest on the delayed payment of arrears concerning retiral benefits. Accordingly, circular dated 21.7.2004 was issued. In the original application filed by the applicants-respondents before the Tribunal, they have claimed interest at the rate of 12% per annum from the date of the judgment rendered by the Full Bench of the Tribunal, which is 16.12.1993. The aforesaid claim is based on the view taken by the CWP No. 13430 of 2008 4 Madras Bench of the Tribunal. In order to resolve the controversy, the Railway Board-petitioner had issued a circular on 14.10.1997 for implementing the judgment of Hon'ble the Supreme Court rendered in the case of C.R. Rangadhamaiah (supra). However, there was no provision made for payment of interest as per the direction issued by the Full Bench of the Tribunal. A copy of the aforesaid circular is on record (A-5). On 17.4.1998 (A-6) another circular was issued by the Railway Board clarifying its earlier circular dated 14.10.1997 that interest on arrears be paid in view of the Full Bench Judgment of the Tribunal, rendered on 16.12.1993, w.e.f. the judgment delivered in individual or group of individual cases. The clarificatory circular confined payment of interest apparently only to those who have approached the Court by initiating legal proceedings. Keeping in view the numerous representations made, the petitioner-Railway Board vide order dated 21.7.2004 (A-1) further amended the circular dated 14.10.1997. The decision taken was to make payment of interest on the arrears which have accrued to the employees w.e.f. 25.7.1997. The interest was made payable to all the employees irrespective of the fact whether they have approached individual forum or not. The payment of arrear with interest from the judgment of Hon'ble the Supreme Court, which is 25.7.1997. However, those who were covered by the earlier instructions dated 17.4.1998 were treated as a separate category. In those instructions interest at the rate of 12% on arrear falling due was required to be paid in terms of earlier circular dated 14.10.1997 from the date of the respective judgments. When the matter came up for the adjudication of this Court, the Division Bench raised three queries in its order dated 02.07.2009, which CWP No. 13430 of 2008 5 reads as under :- "(i) Was any writ petition preferred by the petitioners herein against the order passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal, Madras Bench, reliance whereupon has been placed by the Chandigarh Bench of the Tribunal in the order impugned, in this writ petition? If no petition had been filed, has the benefit of order passed by theMadras Bench of Tribunal been given to those in whose favour the said order was made? (ii) Was any appeal preferred by the respondents against the Division Bench order of the Karnataka High Court in Civil Writ Petition No.28423 of 2003 and connected matters? If so, to what result? (iii) Were the respondents in this petition petitioners before the Central Administrative Tribunal, Chandigarh and parties to O.A. No.1184 of 1995 before the Chandigarh Bench of the Tribunal or was any one of them sitting on the fence as observed in the order passed by the Karnataka High Court?" An Additional affidavit of Shri Satish Kalra, Divisional Personnel Officer, Ferozepur has been filed on 10.10.2009 which answered these queries. The answer to the first query is that the view taken by the Madras Bench of the Tribunal in its judgment dated 16.9.2002 was challenged before the Madras High Court and on 16.6.2003 the writ petition of the Railways was dismissed upholding the view taken by the Madras Bench of the Tribunal. Even S.L.P. was dismissed on 8.1.2004 (P-5). In respect of CWP No. 13430 of 2008 6 issue No.2, the affidavit states that no appeal/Special Leave Petition was filed against the decision dated 19.2.2004, passed by the High Court of Karnataka, rendered in Writ Petition No.28423 of 2003. The answer given to the last query is that all the employee-respondents were parties in OA No. 1184 of 1995 except employee-respondents No.8,17,19,20 and 25. Therefore, the case of other employee-respondents except No.8,17,19,20 and 25 would not require any determination by this Court as all of them filed OA No.1184/PB of 1995, which has been decided on 13.1.1997. The dispute which remains to be decided survives only in respect of employee-respondents 8,17,19,20 and 25. The Tribunal by the impugned order has awarded all other employees-respondents interest at the rate of 12% per annum in terms of the judgment of Madras Bench of the Tribunal. Therefore, the decision of the Tribunal would not be open to challenge in respect of those employees-respondents. Having heard the learned counsel for the parties at a considerable length, we are of the view that the order passed by the Tribunal does not suffer from any legal infirmity. It is appropriate to mention that Full Bench of the Banglore Bench Tribunal (supra) had specifically held that the judgement was to enure to the benefit of similarly circumstanced employees of the Railway. In other words, if a particular railway servant did not challenge the order issued by the Railways then it would not cause any prejudice to him and the benefit of the judgement was required to be extended to him. The view taken by the Madras High Court is consistent with the judgement of the Full Bench of Banglore Bench Tribunal. Five Judge Constitution Bench of Hon'ble the Supreme Court has also upheld the view of the Full Bench of the Banglore Bench Tribunal, as has been CWP No. 13430 of 2008 7 noticed in the preceding paras. Accordingly, the Tribunal vide impugned order has rightly granted interest on arrears of salary to those who have not approached the Tribunal challenging the action of the railways-petitioner. Even otherwise is well settled that a judgement of the Court in favour of a set of employees would also enure to the benefit of others unless the benefits of individual case are different than the decided case. Moreover, the matter is now confined only to five persons and the impact of the monetary effect is also insignificant. Accordingly, we are inclined to upheld the view taken by the Tribunal in the impugned order. As a sequel to the aforesaid discussion, this petition fails and the same is dismissed. (M.M. KUMAR) JUDGE February 23, 2010 (JITENDRA CHAUHAN) Anand JUDGE