Pre-grant service counts for notional pay fixation and pension benefits, but not salary arrears.

Forty petitioners, including serving and retired employees and legal heirs of deceased employees of aided institutions, sought recognition of service rendered before their posts were admitted to grant-in-aid.

They requested that this pre-grant service be counted for pay fixation, seniority, increments, pension and other consequential service benefits, relying on earlier court orders.

The State sought further time, stating that it was contemplating a challenge to an order in W.A. No. 2476/2015; the High Court noted that the order had not been stayed.

1. Whether service rendered by employees before their posts were admitted to grant-in-aid may be reckoned for pay fixation and consequential service and pensionary benefits

2. Whether the respondents should be directed to consider the petitioners’ representations in light of the Division Bench’s ruling on pre-grant service

The Division Bench, in the passage quoted by the Court, construed Annexure-I to the Rules, 1999 as placing responsibility for salary and other benefits during the non-grant period on the institution’s management, not the State.

It held that pre-grant service may be counted for notional pay fixation as of the date the post is admitted to grant-in-aid and for consequential pension and other service benefits, but does not entitle employees to salary arrears or other monetary benefits from the State for the pre-grant period.

The Court also noted that the cited Division Bench order had not been stayed.

The Court applied the Division Bench’s distinction between recognising pre-grant service for service-benefit purposes and imposing liability on the State for pre-grant salary.

Since the Division Bench order remained unstayed, the State’s proposed challenge did not justify withholding consideration of the petitioners’ requests.

The Court therefore directed consideration of the representations, limited to benefits permissible under the Division Bench’s ruling.

The consideration was to be completed within six months from receipt of a copy of the order; no direction for pre-grant salary arrears was granted.

pending interlocutory applications, if any, were also disposed of