Discharged Home Guards are not entitled to pension or gratuity under existing rules.

The petitioners were enrolled as Home Guards between 1979 and 1980 and were discharged between 2019 and 2020.

They claimed that, despite rendering long service, they received no gratuity, pension, or other retirement benefits upon discharge.

They sought, first, the quashing of Rule 15 of the Himachal Pradesh Home Guards Rules, 1971, as unconstitutional, and second, a direction to the State to frame a scheme providing pension, gratuity, and other subsistence benefits to discharged or retired Home Guards.

The State opposed the petition.

The Court also noted that the entitlement of Home Guards to pension, gratuity, and similar retirement benefits had previously been rejected in Shri Ram Kumar Sharma v. State of H.P. , O.A. No. 1871 of 2004, affirmed by the High Court in CWP No. 588 of 2005 and by the Supreme Court in SLP No. 2759 of 2015.

Whether Rule 15 of the Himachal Pradesh Home Guards Rules, 1971, which provides compensation, disability pension, family pension, and children’s allowances in cases of death or disablement arising from duty or training, is unconstitutional or discriminatory because it does not provide general retirement benefits to surviving Home Guards upon discharge.

Whether the petitioners were entitled to a writ directing the State to formulate a scheme providing pension, gratuity, and other post-discharge benefits to Home Guards.

Rule 15 of the Himachal Pradesh Home Guards Rules, 1971, is a compensatory and beneficial provision applicable where a Home Guard suffers injury, disablement, or death while undergoing training or performing duty, subject to the prescribed conditions.

A person challenging the validity of a statutory provision must demonstrate that the provision adversely affects or impinges upon a legal right; a petitioner cannot challenge a provision where striking it down would not confer the relief sought.

The Court relied on the earlier decisions in Shri Ram Kumar Sharma v. State of H.P. , O.A. No. 1871 of 2004, Ram Kumar Sharma v. State of H.P. , CWP No. 588 of 2005, and Grah Rakshak, Home Guards Welfare Association v. State of H.P. , SLP No. 2759 of 2015, which had rejected claims by Home Guards for pension, gratuity, and similar retirement benefits.

The Court held that Rule 15 does not regulate ordinary retirement or discharge benefits; it creates a distinct compensatory regime for Home Guards who die or suffer temporary or permanent disablement in the course of duty or training.

Since the petitioners were claiming general post-discharge benefits and were not challenging the denial of a benefit falling within Rule 15, the Rule did not impair any vested or enforceable right of theirs.

Consequently, they lacked locus to challenge its constitutional validity.

The Court further reasoned that Rule 15 benefits a separate and identifiable class—Home Guards or their families affected by duty-related injury, disablement, or death—and therefore could not be treated as discriminatory merely because surviving discharged Home Guards were not covered by it.

Quashing the Rule would not grant the petitioners pension or gratuity and would instead deprive the intended beneficiaries of its protections.

Their claim for a general pension or gratuity scheme was also barred by the prior decisions expressly rejecting such entitlement.

Rule 15 of the Himachal Pradesh Home Guards Rules, 1971, was held neither unconstitutional nor discriminatory; it was recognized as a beneficial provision confined to duty-related death and disablement.

The petitioners were held not entitled to pension, gratuity, or other retirement benefits merely by reason of their long service and subsequent discharge.

The writ petition was accordingly dismissed, along with any pending miscellaneous applications.