Eligible employees retiring on 30 June must receive a notional increment solely for pension calculation.

The applicant, a retired Notice Server, superannuated on 30 June 2021.

He claimed that he had completed the requisite service for the annual increment due on 1 July 2021 and sought its notional grant for the purpose of recalculating his pension and pensionary benefits.

After an unsuccessful representation dated 26 March 2025, he filed this application under Section 19 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985.

The judgment records that the application was filed on 7 July 2025.

The respondents accepted that the governing instructions provided for notional increments in qualifying cases but submitted that the applicant’s entitlement depended on his satisfying the prescribed eligibility conditions.

Whether an employee who retired on 30 June 2021 is entitled to the increment falling due on 1 July 2021, notionally, for calculating pension.

Whether the applicant’s pension should be revised subject to the eligibility conditions in the DoPT Office Memorandum dated 20 May 2025.

Section 19 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985 provides the basis for the applicant’s original application.

In Director (Admn. and HR), KPTCL v. C.P. Mundinamani, (2023) SCC OnLine SC 401, the Supreme Court held that an annual increment earned through the requisite period of service with good conduct and efficiency becomes payable on the succeeding day; denying it merely because the employee retires on the preceding day would be arbitrary.

In Union of India v. M. Siddaraj, the Supreme Court directed that, for third parties, the Mundinamani judgment would apply from 1 May 2023, and subsequently specified the treatment of applications filed before the relevant courts and tribunals.

The DoPT Office Memorandum dated 20 May 2025 provides for the increment due on 1 January or 1 July to be reckoned for pension calculation where the retiree superannuated on the preceding day, rendered the requisite qualifying service, and had satisfactory work and good conduct; the notional increment is not to be used to calculate other pensionary benefits.

The Tribunal applied Mundinamani to the applicant’s retirement on 30 June 2021 and the increment due the following day.

It noted that the application was filed after 1 May 2023 and treated the applicant as falling within the Supreme Court’s directions concerning third parties.

The DoPT’s 20 May 2025 memorandum supplied the applicable eligibility conditions and limited the increment’s effect to pension calculation.

Because the respondents had raised eligibility as a condition, the Tribunal made the relief expressly subject to the applicant satisfying those criteria.

The respondents must issue a revised Pension Payment Order within four months of receiving a certified copy of the order.

No order as to costs was made.