Union Of India vs A.S. Gangoli & Ors

3. The Government of India, by Circulars dated 17.3.1986 and 19.2.1987 of the Defence Ministry, read with O.M. dated 6.3.1985 of Finance Ministry permitted pro-rata pensionary benefits to officers of defence services on their immediate absorption in Central Public Enterprises. As there was a surplus of officers in the middle seniority level, IAF came up with schemes from time to time enabling officers to take premature retirement voluntarily and join public sector undertakings ('PSUs' for short) and autonomous bodies, without losing the pensionary benefit relating to the IAF service. One such scheme notified on 1.4.1986 invited the officers in the age group of 40 to 47 years to retire voluntarily and join M/s. Vayudoot Ltd.- a public sector undertaking. Several IAF officers including Respondents 1 to 10 applied for premature retirement from IAF under the said scheme in order to join Vayudoot Ltd. By order dated 6.5.1987, the Air Headquarters accepted the proposal for permanent absorption of respondents in Vayudoot Ltd. and also conveyed the Government's approval for premature retirement of the respondents from the Indian Air Force in public interest with effect from 18.5.1987. The respondents accordingly left IAF and joined Vayudoot Ltd. By order dated 13.7.1987, the Ministry of Defence sanctioned pensionary benefits to respondents in terms of Ministry's Circular dated 19.2.1987.

4. The Government of India issued a Circular dated 30.10.1987 in regard to the implementation of the Government decisions on the recommendations of the Fourth Central Pay Commission relating to pensionary benefits for Armed Forces Officers/personnel retiring or dying in harness on or after 1.1.1986. The said circular modified the rules and regulations concerning pensionary benefits of Commissioned Officers and personnel below officer rank, to the extent indicated therein. Clause 5 of the said circular defined "qualifying service" reckonable for pension and Death-cum-Retirement gratuity as follows :

The grant of above weightage was subject to the condition that total qualifying service including weightage shall not exceed 33 years. Notes (1) and (3) to clause 5 of the circular dated 30.10.1987 relevant for our purpose are extracted below:

xxxxxx (3) The above weightage shall not be reckoned for determining the minimum qualifying service specified for admissibility of Retiring/service Pension i.e. 20 years for service officers (15 years for late entrants), 15 years for personnel below officer rank and 20 years for NCs(E)."

7. The writ petition was allowed by judgment dated 14.3.2001. The High Court declared Note (1) appended to clause 5 of the Government Circular dated 30.10.1987 as illegal and inoperative and issued a consequential direction to the appellant to grant a weightage of 7 years for computing pension and weightage of 5 years for computing the retirement gratuity of the respondents and pay them the difference. The decision of the High Court was based on the following reasoning :

9. According to the Respondents, the object of providing a weightage (that is addition of a certain number of years to the qualifying service) for purpose of pension and gratuity of defence personnel was to compensate them for the comparatively younger superannuation age, and for the hazardous and risky nature of defence service. It is stated that the Squadron Leaders retire at the age of 48 years, Wing Commanders at the age of 50 years and Group Captains at the age of 52 years as against the normal retirement age of 58/60 years. As the age of retirement increased as one rose in hierarchy of defence service, the weightage correspondingly decreased. As noticed above, the weightage for pension was 9 years for Pilot Officers, 7 years for Group Captains, 5 years for Air Commodores and 3 years for Air Marshals. The respondents contend that having regard to the object underlying service weightage, any classification, among retiring defence personnel, with the intention of excluding a particular section of them from the benefit of service weightage, was violative of Article 14.

It is, therefore, clear that but for the prior permission, the voluntary premature retirement would have entailed the denial of pensionary benefit in the manner and to the extent mentioned in clause (c) of Regulation 18.

19. We, therefore, allow this appeal, set aside the order of the High Court and consequently, the writ petition of the respondents stands dismissed.