A retired employee cannot be denied revised pay and retiral benefits for the University's posting error.

The petitioner, a Sanskrit lecturer at Mandar College, was included in the Government’s 1989 absorption process and later absorbed by Ranchi University in 1998.

The University regularized him at Mandar College in 2005, but a 2009 notification placed him at K.C.B. College, Bero, although the petitioner contended that sanctioned Sanskrit posts remained vacant at Mandar College.

The University proposed approval of his fifth UGC pay-scale fixation in 2009.

The State rejected the proposal by order dated 18 April 2019, citing the petitioner’s placement at K.C.B. College.

After an earlier writ petition had directed the State to decide the matter, the petitioner challenged that rejection under Article 226.

1. Whether the State’s rejection of the petitioner’s pay-fixation proposal, based on his placement at K.C.B. College, was sustainable when that placement resulted from the University’s own decision and sanctioned posts were said to be available at Mandar College.

2. Whether the petitioner was entitled to revised pay and consequential retiral benefits, including on the basis that other employees covered by the same notification had received pay-fixation benefits.

Article 226 empowers the High Court to review administrative action for legality and fairness.

The Court relied on the constitutional directive in Article 39(a), reasoning that the State should not deprive a retired employee of retiral benefits through an objection attributable to the employer, particularly after the employee had served for years.

The Court also treated the University’s responsibility for the petitioner’s placement, and the grant of benefits to others named in the same notification, as relevant to whether the State’s decision was justified.

Although the parties referred to Section 4(14) of the Bihar State Universities Act and various absorption decisions, the Court did not set out a separate statutory interpretation or rely on a cited precedent as the basis of its holding.

The Court found that the petitioner had been regularized at Mandar College and that three sanctioned Sanskrit posts there were vacant, yet the University later placed him at K.C.B. College.

It held that the consequences of that University decision could not fairly be imposed on the petitioner, a retired employee, to deny pay fixation—particularly when other persons covered by the same notification had received the benefit.

In the Court’s view, withholding the resulting retiral benefits on that ground was inconsistent with the State’s obligation to protect a retired employee’s means of livelihood under Article 39(a).

It directed the State and Ranchi University to revise the petitioner’s pay under the fifth, sixth and seventh pay revision commissions, grant the consequential retiral benefits in accordance with law, and complete the exercise within twelve weeks of receiving or being shown a copy of the judgment.

The writ petition was allowed and disposed of on those terms.