Case: EX NAVY DIRECT ENTRY ARTIFICERS ASSO Vs. THE UNION OF INDIA MINISTRY OF DEFENCE REPRESENTED BY THE SECRETARY

Appellant No. 1 is a registered Association of Ex Navy Direct Entry Artificers, whereas appellant Nos. 2 to 5 are Ex Direct Entry Artificers of the Navy. Primarily, it is the cause of appellant Nos. 2 to 5 which is espoused by their Association as well i.e. appellant No. 1. These appellant Nos. 2 to 5 have rendered actual service of 10 years. For an Artificer to become entitled to pension, he is supposed to render minimum service of 15 years as per Regulation 78 of the Navy (Pension) Regulations, 1964.The appellants had filed O.A. No. 8 of 2013 before the Armed Forces Tribunal (hereinafter referred to as theRegional Bench, Kochi in which prayer to grant benefit was sought by them. The AFT, however, has not accepted the case set up by the appellants. As a result, their O.A. stands dismissed by the AFT vide order dated January 22, 2014. The appellants thereafter filed review petition seeking review of that judgment which was also dismissed by the AFT on March 25, 2014. Simultaneously, however, prayer for leave to appeal to this Court have been granted by the AFT seeking authoritative pronouncement of this Court on the following questions of law formulated by the Tribunal:reserve liabilities imposed at the time of enrolment ipso facto amounted to their being drafted to Fleet Reserve without any specific order to draft them to the Reserve on completion of regular Naval service? If so, whether the period of such reserve liability as per the stipulated scheme was liable to be taken into account for computing the length of service of the applicants for pension purposes?(2) Whether the applicants Nos. 2 to 5 were entitled to be treated at par with the Apprentice Entry Artificers for pension purposes only on the ground that both of them belong to the same homogenous class of Artificers?3. Both these orders passed in O.A. as well as in review petition have been assailed by the appellants by way of instant appeal preferred under Section 30 of the Armed Forces Tribunal Act, 2007.Reverting to the facts of thecase, as pointed out above, appellant Nos. 2 to 5 were engaged as Direct Artificers for a period of 10 years. All these appellants were engaged prior to July, 1976. This is the actual service rendered by them. According to them, they were drafted into Fleet Reserve for a period of 10 years and 50% of this period have been counted for pension. On that basis, they claim that they have become entitled to receive pension. Therefore, they made a request on May 10, 2012 to the respondents to grant pension to them. However, vide reply dated June 25, 2012, respondents turned down their request as ‘not tenable in accordance with the extentThe reason given by the respondents was that the appellants were not drafted into Fleet Reserve at all and, therefore, there was no reason to count 50% of the Fleet Reserve period. The respondents, in this behalf, referred to Government Order No. AD/5374/2/76/2214/S/D(N.II) dated July 3, 1976 as per which drafting into Fleet Reserve was discontinued from 1976 onwards and, therefore, the appellants were never drafted into Fleet Reserve. After receiving this rejection of their request, the appellants approach the AFT in the form of O.A. which has met the fate of dismissal, as already mentioned above.

Court's reasoning:
is clear from the above that liability to serve in the Indian Fleet Reserve, if required, as stipulated in Regulation 269, is only when such a Sailor is drafted into Indian Fleet Reserve. There has to be, thus, a positive act of enrolment in the Fleet Reserve. A person who is enrolled as Artificer in the Indian Navy and completes 10of service, cannot presume that he stands automatically enrolled in Fleetfar as Appellant Nos. 2 to 5 are concerned, there was no such enrolment in Fleetfact, the appellants were conscious of the aforesaid position. That was the reason that Principle of Promissory Estoppel was invoked on the ground that since their enrolment was prior to July 03,1976, the decision of the Government of India to discontinue transfer of Sailors into Fleet Reserve as contained in communication dated July 03,1976 is not binding on them. Even if we proceed on that basis, the legal position that has been culled out from the relevant statutory provision and enumerated above, clearly shows that there was no promise held out to these appellants that after the completion of continuous service of 10 years as Sailors, they would be drafted into Fleet Reserve. The Tribunal has correctly remarked that at the time of initial enrolment no recruit can be given any guarantee/promise of his being enrolled into Fleet Reserve as his performance in the active service and recommendations he receives would decide his eligibility for enrolment into Fleet Reserve. Therefore, even prior to the promulgation of policy for discontinuance of drafting into Fleet Reserve from 1976, Respondent Nos. 1 and 2 were clearly at liberty to decide if a Sailor is to be enrolled into Fleet Reserve or not.the absence of any such assurance of enrolment of drafting into Fleet Reserve, at the time of initial recruitment, the Principle of Promissory Estoppel cannot be invoked. The Tribunal has, in this behalf, taken note of certainof this Court and on that basis rightly concluded that mere recruitment/enrolment for active as well as reserve service without making any order of transfer to Indian Fleet Reserve under Regulation 269 of Navy Regulation Part III as well as Regulations of Indian Fleet Reserve, it cannot be treated that any promise was accorded to the appellants about drafting into Fleet Reserve, at anytime. We would, at this juncture, like to reproduce para 31 of T.R. Das case.The original applicants contend that if the Government Policy dated 3-7-1976 is applied to the serving Sailors, inevitably, it will result in retrospective application thereof to their detriment. That is forbidden by Section 184-A of the Act. This argument does not commend to us. In that, the effect of the Government Policy is to disband the establishment of the Reserve Fleet Service with effect from 3-7-1976. As found earlier, drafting of Sailors to the Reserve Fleet Service was not automatic, but dependent on an express order to be passed by the competent authority in that behalf on case-to-case basis. The Sailors did not have a vested or accrued right for being placed in the Reserve Fleet Service. Hence, no right of the Sailors in active service was affected or taken away because of the Policy dated, thus, answer question no. 1 in the negative and hold that the appellants are not entitled to count 50% of the Fleet Reserve as they were never drafted into the said reserve. Consequently, the appellants are not entitled to reservist pension. However, their cases would be considered for grant of special pension on same lines as was done in T.R. Das judgment and directed in para 36 of the said judgment.Apprentice Artificers also got the pension on rendition of 10service, there would have been some force in the argument of the appellants. However, that is not so. As already noted above, insofar as Apprentice Entry Artificers are concerned, they had undergone 4training in Naval establishment. Thereafter, they were advanced to the rank of Artificer V and their initial engagement of 10active service commenced. After one year in the rank of Artificer Vth Class, these Apprentice Entry Artificers were advanced to the rank of Artificer acting IVth Class. In their cases, the training period of four years has been counted for considering their eligibility for the purpose of pension. This has happened pursuant to the judgment of this Court in Anuj Kumar Dey & Anr. v. Union of India &. In the cases of Apprentice Entry Artificers, the Government had refused to reckon the period for the purpose of pension. The question before this court was as to whether the training period spent on Apprentice Artificers was liable to be taken into account for pension purposes. The Court decided the question in favour of the Apprentice Entry Artificers. Thus, these Apprentice Entry Artificers became entitled to pension on the inclusion of training period towards the service. Their case is, therefore, entirely different from thewho are Direct Entry Artificers and had no benefit of such training.30.An attempt was made by learned counsel for appellants to argue that Anuj Kumar Dey does not lay down correct law as the training period could not have been reckoned for calculating qualifying period for pension.However, it is not open to the appellants to raise such an argument. In the first place, this argument would not enure to the benefit of the appellants as it would not entitle them to pension in any case. Even if the contention of the appellants is presumed as correct, the only effect thereof would be to hold that even Apprentice EntryArtificer are not entitled to pension. We may note, however, that learned counsel for appellants was candid in his submission that he did not want Apprentice Entry Artificers to be deprived of their pension. Secondly, in any case, in the absence of Apprentice Entry Artificers, such an argument cannot be considered. Thirdly, the law laid down in Anuj Kumar Dey has held the filed for more than 20 years and there is no reason to upset the same. For all these reasons, we reject the contention and answer Question no. (2) against the appellants.