Past contractual service followed by regular appointment must be counted toward qualifying service for pensionary benefits.

The five petitioners were initially appointed as Para Teachers (contractual) between 2003 and 2007.

While serving, they applied for regular appointment as Intermediate Trained Teachers under a 50% quota reserved for Para Teachers with at least two years of uninterrupted service.

After a selection process, they were appointed to regular posts in January/February 2016 and served until their superannuation in 2025.

Upon retirement, they had served approximately 9 years in regular establishment, falling short of the 10-year "qualifying service" required for pensionary benefits under State rules.

The petitioners sought a direction to count their prior contractual service as Para Teachers toward their total qualifying service for pension, gratuity, and other benefits.

1. Whether the past services rendered by the petitioners as contractual Para Teachers, followed by regular appointment in the same department, should be counted for the purpose of calculating qualifying service for pensionary benefits.

The court primarily applied Rules 56 and 58 of the Jharkhand Pension Rules, noting that Rule 58 (qualifying service) is pari materia with Regulation 361 of the U.P. Civil Services Regulation.

It relied heavily on the Supreme Court precedent in Prem Singh v. State of Uttar Pradesh & Others (2019) 10 SCC 516, which held that depriving employees of qualifying service benefits based on their prior status as work-charged/contractual employees is discriminatory and irrational.

The court further applied State of Himachal Pradesh v. Sheela Devi (2023 SCC OnLine SC 1272) and S.D. Jayaprakash v. Union of India (2025 SCC OnLine SC 973), establishing that Rule 2(g) exclusions for contractual staff are superseded once an employee is regularized, at which point past contractual service must be counted.

The court reasoned that the State’s refusal to count the Para Teacher service was contradictory, as the State itself used that very service as a mandatory eligibility criterion (the 2-year uninterrupted service rule) for the petitioners' regular appointments.

The court found that the petitioners' transition from contractual to regular status was not a mere "regularization" but a merit-based selection where their prior experience was a prerequisite.

Applying the Prem Singh doctrine, the court held that since the petitioners retired as regular government servants and their prior service was under the same department (School Education & Literacy), excluding that period would be "too harsh" and violate the principle that pension is not a bounty but a right for services rendered.

The court distinguished Parmeshwar Nanda v. State of Jharkhand (2020) 12 SCC 131, noting that unlike that case, the petitioners here had no break in service and remained in the same department.

A writ of mandamus was issued directing the respondents to count the petitioners' services from their initial contractual joining dates (ranging from 2003–2007) for pension purposes and calculate and pay all post-retirement benefits within eight weeks, along with simple interest @ 6% per annum from the date of retirement until actual payment.