Case: V. B. Raju Vs. Union of India and Others

2. The facts leading to the petition decided by the impugned judgment are not in dispute and may be shortly stated. On the 6th October 1932 the appellant was appointed by the Secretary of State for India to the Indian Civil Service and was allotted to its Bombay cadre. On the 15th August 1947, he was serving as a District Judge in the Province of Bombay and thereafter continued in service in accordance with the provision s of section 10(2) ofthe Indian Independence Act, 1947(hereinafter referred to as the 1947 Act) and article 314 of the Constitution. He was appointed Additional Judge of the Bombay High Court on the 12th June 1959 and on bifurcation of the State of Bombay on the 1st May 1960 became an Additional Judge of the High Court of Gujarat wherein he was made a permanent Judge on the 5th April 1961 and continued to serve as such till 10th February 1969 on which date he submitted his resignation from and relinquished charge of his office      Through a letter dated 28th May 1966 addressed to the Registrar of the High Court of Gujarat, the Accountant General, Gujarat requested the appellant to exercise his option in accordance with the proviso to section 15th of the high Court Judges (Conditions of Service) Act, 1954 (hereinafter called the 1954 Act) and to intimate whether he would receive his pension under Part I or Part II of the First Schedule to that Act. The stand taken by the appellant was that he was not bound to exercise any option and that pension in relation to his service as a High Court Judge was payable to him under section 14 of the 1954 Act read with Part I of the said First Schedule. The Government of India not having agreed with the stand taken by the appellant, he moved the High Court as stated above and in his petition challenged the validity of the second proviso to section 14 of the 1954 Act as also of clause (a) of section 15 thereof read with Part II of the said First Schedule.The contentions raised on behalf of the appellant before the High Court were:      A. The second proviso to section 14 of the 1954 Act is violative of articles 221, 314 and 14 of the Constitution and is, therefore, void. The appellant is accordingly entitled to elect for pension under Part I of the First Schedule to that Act without being required to forego the benefit of the pension earned by him prior to his elevation to the Bench.      B. Clause (a) of section 15 of the 1954 Act is applicable only to a Judge who is a member of the Indian Civil Service. That Service, however, came to an end on the 15th of August, 1947 whereafter there was no Judge who could be said to be a member of that Service. The clause has, therefore, no application to any situation prevailing after the said date.      C. Clause (a) of section 15 of the 1954 Act read with Part II of the First Schedule thereto is violative of article 14 of the Constitution so that in case the second proviso to section 14 of the 1954 Act is held to be good, the appellant would be entitled to pension under clause (b) of section 15 of that Act read with Part III of the said Schedule.In regard to contention A the High Court held that the appellant having accepted appointment as a High Court Judge in Continuation of his service as a District Judge, he never became entitled to pension for the period preceding his elevation to the Bench so that the second proviso to section 14 of the 1954 Act never became applicable to him and the validity or otherwise of that proviso was irrelevant for the determination of his claim.      Contention B was negatived by the High Court on the ground that the expression "who is a member of the Indian Civil Service" appearing in clause (a) of section 15 of the 1954 Act had to be given some meaning in spite of the fact that the Indian Civil Service had ceased to be alive as such after August 15, 1947 and that the only reasonable way of interpreting the expression was to hold that it meant a person who had been a member of the Indian Civil Service immediately before August 15, 1947.The conclusions arrived at by the High Court as a result of the consideration it gave to ground C may be summarisedUnder the Civil Service Regulations read with the 1937 Order a member of the Indian Civil Service who was promoted from the post of a District Judge to that of a High Court Judge was not entitled to pension for the period prior to his elevation to the Bench. His right to pension accrued only when he relinquished the office of High Court Judge. This position continued to obtain till the enforcement of the Constitution by reason of section 10(2) of the 1947 Act and after such enforcement by reason of the provisions of the Constitution, namely, articles 314 and 221(2) read with sub-paragraph (4) of paragraph 10 of Part D of the Second Schedule as that sub-paragraph stood prior to its deletion by the 1956 Act. Thus the Constitution itself through its provisions just above mentioned provided that High Court Judges who had earlier been members of the Indian Civil Service would get pension according to the formula contained in the 1937 Order which was a formula different from the one applicable to High Court Judges who had not been members of any of the civil services.      (b) The 1954 Act preserved the trichotomy envisaged by the 1937 Order but made an additional provision that if a High Court Judge who had earlier been a member of the Indian Civil Service felt that it would be more beneficial to him to receive pension on the basis of the provisions set out in section 14 of the 1954 Act read with Part I of the First Schedule thereto he could elect to do so. This additional provision was obviously introduced for the benefit of the erstwhile members of that Service.      (c) The Constitution itself put its seal on the trichotomy above detailed through articles 314 and 221(2) read with paragraph 10 of Part D of the Second Schedule and the differentiation made by the Constitution itself cannot be attacked as discriminatory when it was adopted by Parliament in the 1954 Act.(d) The basis of calculating pension in clause (a ) of section 15 of the Act read with Part II of the First Schedule thereto on the one hand and clause (b) of section 15 of that Act read with Part III of the said Schedule on the other, is continuity of service. Service rendered by a person as High Court Judge is tagged on with any earlier service for the purpose of computation of basic pension; for, otherwise High Court Judges who had earlier been members of civil services would be deprived of the pensionary benefit in respect of their service rendered as such members. This was the reason for the trichotomy which was adopted not only by the 1937 Order but also by the 1947 Act and later on by the Constitution as well as the 1954 Act for the benefit of such Judges. The differentiation is not only not irrational but is eminently desirable and is based on rational criteria.It was in the above premises that the High Court did not find any substance in the petition dismissed by the impugned order.      7. All the contentions raised before the High Court have been reiterated before us but after hearing the appellant in person at length we see no reason at all to differ from the conclusions reached by the High Court.

Reasoning: 8. We may first take up contention B which need not detain us long. It is a cardinal principle of interpretation of statutes that the legislature does not use meaningless language and that every word used by it must be presumed to have some meaning even though the phraseology employed may some-times be obscure or ambiguous. The expression "who is a member of the Indian Civil Service" appearing in clause (a) of section 15 of the 1954 Act cannot be just ignored as being inapplicable to an existing situation and thus rendered otiose. As pointed out by the High Court what was meant was to describe as a class High Court Judges who had earlier been members of the Indian Civil Service so that they could be distinguished from High Court Judges who had not been such members. In this connection it is noteworthy that although the Indian Civil Service ceased to function as a Service of the Secretary of State for India after the 15th of August 1947 when the 1947 Act was enforced, its members were automatically appointed to corresponding posts under the Crown in connect ion with the affairs of the Dominion of India or of a Province by virtue of the provisions of sub-clause (1) of clause 7 of the India (Provisional Constitution) Order, 1947.The other contentions raised by the appellant ignore one basic reason which provides justification for the trichotomy operating right from the enforcement of the 1937 Order. He does not (and of course cannot) challenge that trichotomy for the period prior to the commencement of the Constitution because his objection to it is based on discrimination violative of article 14 thereof. But then he has failed to realise what the Constitution itself enacted in paragraph 10 of its Second Schedule both before and after its amendment by t he 1956 Act. Prior to the 1st November 1956 (which is the date on which the 1956 Act came into force) sub-paragraph (4) of the said paragraph 10 provided for pension of Judges of the High Court of any State being governed by the provisions which were applicable to such Judges before the commencement of the Constitution. Those provisions were, as pointed out above, contained in the 1937 Order which initiated the trichotomy. The High Court was thus right in holding that the Constitution itself adopted that trichotomy.Then came the 1954 Act which was brought on the statute book by Parliament in exercise of its legislative powers under article 221(2) of the Constitution. The trichotomy introduced by the 1937 Order was repeated in the 1954 Act, till when it had been kept alive by sub-paragraph (4) above mentioned. And that trichotomy is good not only because it was adopted by the Constitution till legislation was enacted under article 221(2) thereof but also because it was necessitated by reason of High Court Judges being drawn from three differentso far as persons who had been members of the Indian Civil Service or of a State Judicial Service before being appointed as High Court Judges are concerned, the period of service put in by them in such Service has to be taken into account. On the other hand, High Court Judges recruited directly from the Bar do not have any prior service to their credit. All the High Court Judges, though holding equivalent posts, are thus not similarly situated, particularly in regard to the payment of pension and other retirement benefits. That is why different provisions were considered necessary in the case of each of the three categories in regard to payment of pension. The classification so made is a reasonable classification based on intelligible differentia having a proper nexus to the object to beproviso would have fully applied to the case of the appellant if he had actually been in receipt of a pension prior to his elevation to the Bench. That he was not in receipt of any such pension is, however, admitted on all hands and, therefore, as held by the High Court, the second proviso to section 14 of the 1954 Act has no application to him. But then his argument is that he should be deemed to have been in receipt of a pension according to his entitlement immediately be fore he took oath as a High Court Judge. Even if we assume this argument to be correct, his case would not improve in any manner; for, then his salary as a High Court Judge would automatically come down to less than Rs. 3500 which is the salary payable to Judges who have not been members of any of the civil services earlier, and the difference would not be merely marginal. It is the case of the appellant that if he had retired from the Indian Civil Service immediately prior to the 12th Jun e 1959 when he was elevated to the Bench he would have been entitled to receive a pension of Rs. 13350 per annum or about Rs. 1111 per mensem. On his elevation to the Bench he would in that case be entitled to a salary of less than Rs. 2400 as compared to Rs. 3500 payable to other High Court Judges who had not belonged to any civil services earlier. This difference in salary being substantial is itself a good reason for treating the appellant and other High Court Judges similarly situated in a manner different from High Court Judges not so situated and the same reasoning would apply to High Court Judges who had earlier been members of civil services other than the Indian Civil Service. It is of course not the case of the appellant that the proviso to sub-paragraph (1) of paragraph 10 above mentioned is itself not enforceable for one reason or the other; and if that be so, the trichotomy of which he complains becomes fully justifiable.We may make it clear, however, that the appellants plea that he must be held entitled to a separate pension for his service immediately preceding his elevation to the Bench cannot be accepted as correct in the face of the finding by the High Court that he was entitled to pension only after his retirement and, therefore, after his service as a High Court Judge came to an end, and that too according to the 1937 Order. The appellant has failed to show how that finding is erroneous. In this connection it may be stated that it was only after the Accountant General had requested him to indicate his option in accordance with the proviso to section 15 of the 1954 Act that he claimed two pensions, one in respect of the period prior to his elevation to the Bench and on e for that for which he was a High Court Judge. At no time prior to that had he claimed any pension for his service as a member of the Indian Civil Service or any of the other civil services.