Post-retiral benefits cannot be claimed as a matter of right without specific statutory rules or schemes.

The Petitioner served as Assistant Director/Director at the Institute of Correspondence Courses and Continuing Education (ICC&CE), University of Allahabad, until her retirement on 31.08.2017.

In a previous round of litigation (Writ-A No. 31696 of 2016), the High Court directed the University to pay her salary arrears, noting that while the ICC&CE is a self-financing body and should not burden the public exchequer, withholding salary for work done would amount to "Begar" under Article 23.

Following retirement, the Petitioner sought post-retiral benefits (pension, gratuity, CPF).

The University rejected her representation on 30.05.2019, stating that the ICC&CE is a temporary, self-financing institute under Statute 30(2) and Ordinance XXXII, and its service rules do not provide for post-retiral benefits.

Whether an employee of a self-financing, temporary institute within a University is entitled to post-retiral benefits in the absence of specific service rules providing for the same.

Whether the Petitioner can claim post-retiral benefits based on the principle of parity because other employees of the same Institute allegedly received such benefits.

The Court applied Section 30(2) of the University of Allahabad Act, 2005, which designates the ICC&CE as a temporary self-financing University Institute governed by Ordinances.

It relied on the Supreme Court precedent in Prabhu Narain v. State of U.P., establishing that while pension is a valuable right, an employee must prove entitlement under a specific rule or scheme.

Furthermore, the court applied the doctrine of "Negative Equality" as articulated in R. Muthukumar v. TANGEDCO, which stipulates that Article 14 does not envisage the perpetuation of illegality; if a benefit was wrongly granted to others, it does not confer a legal right on another to claim the same.

The Court observed that while the ICC&CE was an integral part of the University, its status remained "temporary" and "self-financing" even after the University became a Central University in 2005.

The court reasoned that constitutional protection of service conditions under Section 5(d) of the 2005 Act only preserves rights that existed prior to the Act; however, the Petitioner failed to produce any service rule or statute existing before or after 2005 that mandated pensionary benefits for ICC&CE staff.

The court further distinguished the right to salary (which was granted previously to prevent "Begar") from the right to pension, holding that the latter is strictly a creature of rules.

Regarding the claim of parity, the court held that even if some employees were mistakenly given benefits, it constitutes "negative parity," which cannot be legally enforced to multiply an irregularity.

The court concluded that entitlement to pension must be rooted in a specific legal provision, which the Petitioner failed to demonstrate.

Additionally, any previous instances of the University granting such benefits to others were deemed legally irrelevant under the principle that illegality cannot be perpetuated through a claim of equality.