Long-serving whole-time contingency-paid employees are entitled to pension despite absence of formal regularization.

Late Shri Ram Das Prajapati, husband of the applicant, was engaged by the Department of Posts as a Contingency Paid Gardner/Mali on 11 December 1977.

He was subsequently granted full-time casual labour status by letter dated 16 September 1992 and continued working for over 22 years without interruption.

During his service, he received Pay, Dearness Pay and Dearness Allowance and other benefits under the Sixth Central Pay Commission.

Although he was allegedly due to retire in 2017, he continued working until the age of 64 years and was disengaged by order dated 9 December 2021.

The applicant claimed that her husband’s continuous service and the benefits extended to him entitled him to be treated as a regular Group ‘D’ employee for pensionary purposes.

The respondents contended that he had never been granted temporary status or formally regularized, and that the post of Gardner/Mali had become a dying cadre in 1991.

Whether a full-time casual labourer who continuously served the Department of Posts for more than two decades and received service-related benefits could be treated as a regular employee for pensionary purposes despite the absence of a formal regularization order.

Whether the applicant was entitled to family pension and other retiral or post-retiral benefits on the basis that her deceased husband was deemed to have been regularized.

Paragraph 154(a) of the Post and Telegraph Ministerial Manual provides that specified whole-time contingency-paid staff, including gardeners, who work alongside regular or work-charged employees should be brought onto the regular establishment and treated as regular employees.

The Tribunal relied on Union of India v. Shyam Lal Shukla, Civil Misc. Writ Petition No. 60272 of 2009, where the Allahabad High Court held that paragraph 154(a) conferred pensionary benefits notwithstanding the absence of a formal regularization order.

It also relied on Chandi Lal v. Union of India, O.A. No. 917/2004, affirmed by the Allahabad High Court and the Supreme Court, recognizing pension entitlement where an employee had rendered long, uninterrupted service and had been treated substantially as a Group ‘D’ employee despite no formal regularization.

The controlling principle was that formal regularization was not indispensable where the employee’s status, continuity of service and treatment by the Department established entitlement under paragraph 154(a).

The Tribunal rejected the respondents’ characterization of the deceased employee as merely a daily-wage worker.

His initial engagement as a Contingency Paid Gardner/Mali was followed by the grant of full-time casual labour status, uninterrupted service exceeding 22 years, payment of Pay, Dearness Pay and Dearness Allowance, and continued employment beyond the date on which he was allegedly due to retire.

Applying paragraph 154(a) and the principles in Shyam Lal Shukla and Chandi Lal, the Tribunal held that the Department’s conduct and the nature and duration of service brought him within the category of employees entitled to be treated as regular, even though no formal order of regularization had been issued.

The fact that the post was later declared a dying cadre did not justify denying pensionary benefits after the Department had permitted the employee to continue in service and had extended substantial service benefits to him.

The Tribunal directed that the services of the applicant’s husband be deemed to have been regularized and ordered the respondents to extend family pension to the applicant and process the pension, retiral and post-retiral dues admissible to her husband as a regular employee.

The respondents were also directed to adjust the payment after taking into account that he had worked until the age of 64 years.

The exercise was to be completed within three months of receipt of the certified copy of the order; failing compliance, the payable amount would carry simple interest at the General Provident Fund rate.

No order as to costs was made, and all connected miscellaneous applications were disposed of.