Court No. - 6
Case :- WRIT - A No. - 13688 of 2020 Petitioner :- Reeta Rastogi Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 4 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Udayan Nandan,Sr. Advocate (Shashi Nandan) Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.
Hon'ble Ajay Bhanot,J.
The following prayer is made in this writ petition:
"(i) Issue a writ, order or direction in the nature of certiorari quashing the impugned order dated 09.03.2017 passed by the Additional Chief Secretary, Department of Labour, Government of Uttar Pradesh.
(ii) Issue a writ, order or direction in the nature of mandamus directing the respondents to grant the benefit of pension, gratuity and other retiral dues to the petitioner by treating her to be in service from the date of her initial appointment i.e. from 17.03.1989 on the post of Medical Officer, Employees State Insurance Scheme, Labour Medical Services
(iii) Issue a writ, order or direction in the nature of mandamus directing the respondents to pay the benefit of pension, gratuity and other retiral dues to the petitioner from the date of her retirement i.e. 31.12.2015 along with arrears at 18% interest, till the date of actual payment.
(iv) Issue any other writ order or direction which this Hon'ble Court may deem fit and proper in the circumstances of the case.
(v) Award the costs of the case in favour of the petitioner. "
Shri Udayan Nandan, learned counsel for the petitioner contends that similarly situated officers were granted the benefit of counting ad-hoc services towards qualifying service for grant of pension after regularization. Two of the persons who were granted the same benefit was Dr. Atul Darbari and Dr. Pushpendra Singh Chauhan. Dr. Atul Darbari, Dr. Pushpendra Singh Chauhan and the petitioner were regularized by the same order passed by the competent authority on 24.07.2009.
The claims of Dr. Atul Darbari and Dr. Pushpendra Singh Chauhan for the benefit of counting ad-hoc services towards qualifying service for grant of pension have been respectively upheld by this Court in Writ A No. 52358 of 2017, Dr. Atul Darbari Vs. State of U.P. and another and Writ A No. 7496 of 2020 Dr. Pushpendra Singh Chauhan Vs. State of U.P. and 2 others. Case of the petitioner stands on the same footing.
Learned Standing Counsel on the basis of instructions submits that the petitioner is not entitled to the benefits of pension being claimed by her as per the new pension scheme. New pension scheme is not applicable to the case of petitioner.
However, the applicability of the judgments of this Court in Dr Atul Darbari (supra) and Dr. Pushpendra Singh Chauhan (supra) to this case could not be satisfactorily disputed.
I find that the case of the petitioner is squarely covered by the judgment of this Court rendered in the case of Dr. Atul Darbari (supra) and Dr. Pushpendra Singh Chauhan (supra). The petitioner is fully entitled to all service benefits which were granted to Dr. Atul Darbari and Dr. Pushpendra Singh Chauhan, which included counting of ad-hoc services as qualifying service for purposes of grant of benefits.
It is further directed that admissible benefits are to be paid to the petitioner within a period of three months from the date of production of a computer generated copy of this order, downloaded from the official website of the High Court Allahabad.
The computer generated copy of such order be self attested by the petitioners (party concerned) along with a self attested identity proof of the said person (preferably Aadhar Card) mentioning the mobile number to which the said Aadhar Card is linked. The Authority/Official shall verify the authenticity of such computerized copy of the order from the official website of High Court Allahabad and shall make a declaration of such verification in writing.
It is made clear that in the event the payment is not disbursed to the petitioner within the specific time period, or the claim of the petitioner is not decided, the petitioner would be entitled to 8% interest, which may be recovered from the concerned officials.
The writ petition is disposed of finally.
Order Date :- 8.1.2021 Nadeem Ahmad