Jharkhand High Court: Deepak Roshan J., upheld the impugned judgment and dismissed the petition stating that the petitioner failed to show any error in the said judgment.
The facts of the case is that the petitioner was appointed in 1971 as Extra Clerk in the office of District Sub- Registrar, Latehar which was confirmed on 21-01-1981 and retired on 31-01-2000, but his retirement benefits has been fixed counting his service from 1981. The petitioner earlier moved the Court for same relief by filing writ application which was heard and disposed of with a direction to reconsider adding his past services as Extra Clerk to the total length of services and reassess the amount of pension etc. The instant writ application has been preferred by the petitioner for quashing the order dated 31.05.2011 passed by the I.G. Registration which has rejected the service of petitioner rendered as Extra Clerk to not be counted for pensionary benefits.
Counsel for petitioner M.M. Sharma submitted that the said memo is illegal and has no leg to stand and that the petitioner having been served for 24 years deserve to be given benefits.
The respondents were represented by Sreenu Garapati, Sudharshan Srivastava and Diwakar Upadhya. It was submitted that as per Bihar Govt. Finance Department Resolution dated 22-07-2003, it has been laid down that those extra clerk who have served minimum 240 days as Extra Clerk in one Calendar year; all those period of service since prior to the date of confirmation shall be computed for pension but since the petitioner did not work 240 days in any of the calendar Year’s as Extra Clerk as such, his service period rendered as Extra Clerk are not fit to be counted for pensionary benefit. It was further laid down that said post was not substantive and permanent and was not being paid out of public exchequer.
The Court observed that the petitioner was working as Extra Clerk on a temporary basis and his employment was not against any substantive and permanent post and he was not being paid out of public exchequer as provided under Rule 58 of the Jharkhand Pensions Rules and on the other hand, the petitioner has also not passed the accounts examination as well as he did not complete 240 working days in any calendar year as such, he could not take benefit of the resolution of the Finance Dept. Govt. of Bihar.
The Court relied on the judgment titled State of Jharkhand v. Kauleshwar Prasad, 2006 SCC OnLine Jhar 238 held that the period of Extra Clerk shall not be counted for the purpose of giving pensionary benefits.
In view of the above, impugned judgment upheld and petition dismissed. [Daya Shankar Prasad v. State of Jharkhand, 2020 SCC OnLine Jhar 770, decided on 24-08-2020]
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