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1995 DIGILAW 174 (SC)

UNION OF INDIA v. B. RAMAMURTHY

1995-01-27

B.L.HANSARIA, K.RAMASWAMY

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( 1 ) LEAVE granted. ( 2 ) THE government of India in OM No. 18 (4-EV/79 dated 25/5/1979 introduced in para 3 (iii) that half of the dearness pay was treated as pay to compute retirement benefits. That came to be challenged by the respondent in filing OA before the central Administrative tribunal, Hyderabad. The tribunal in the impugned order dated 9/8/1989 following a judgment of the Bangalore tribunal declared it to be ultra vires, offending Article 14 of the Constitution. Thus this appeal by special leave. ( 3 ) THE benefit of the OM is to facilitate calculation of 10 months average pay for the purpose of pension. Earlier, only 3/10th of the 10 months average pay was computed for pension. Under the impugned order in para 3 (iii) of the OM dated 25/5/1979, the computation would be 5/10th i. e. half of the dearness pay for the purpose of computation of pension. In other words, the OM is more beneficial for the pensioner rather than earlier computation. Whether the notification is justified and valid in law, was considered by a bench of this court in State of Rajasthan v. Sevanivatra Karamchari Hitkari Samiti wherein it was held that the ratio in Nakara case has no bearing in this matter and the introduction of the rule is not arbitrary or capricious. It is permissible to introduce different retiral benefit schemes for government servants as indicated in the decisions held by this court in Krishena Kumar v. Union of India, Indian Ex-Services League v. Union of India and State of Rajasthan v, Rajasthan Pensioner Samaj. ( 4 ) IN view of the above ratio and practical effect of the OM, we are of the opinion that there is no invidious discrimination in the classification of the pensioners who retired at different dates and in computation of the pension for different periods. The governments OM makes discernible difference between government employees retired at different dates for entitlement to pension. In fact, the OM is more beneficial to the retired employees than was contended in the petition. ( 5 ) UNDER the circumstances, the tribunal was not right in following the earlier decision of the another tribunal at Bangalore accepting the ratio innakara case without testing the facts and circumstances of this case. The appeal is accordingly allowed. No costs.