Retired Para Teacher With 9 Years’ Regular Service Wins Pension As Himachal HC Counts Earlier Para Work Toward Eligibility

The petitioner was engaged as a Para Teacher (Language Teacher) on 31 May 2004 under the State’s 2003 Para Teachers Policy.

After completing ten years of continuous service, she was regularized on 19 December 2014 and superannuated on 29 February 2024, having completed fewer than ten years of regular service.

Her request to count her Para Teacher service as qualifying service for pension was rejected by order dated 28 September 2024.

She challenged that rejection and sought pension.

She did not press her challenge to the H.P. Recruitment and Conditions of Service of Government Employee Act, 2024, noting that the Act had been declared ultra vires by a Coordinate Bench.

The Court relied on its decisions in Jagdev Singh and others v. State of H.P. and others, CWP No. 688 of 2024, decided 27 September 2024, and State of H.P. and others v. Jagdev Singh and others, LPA No. 812 of 2025, decided 26 February 2026.

Those decisions supported counting Para Teacher service toward qualifying service for pension.

The Court applied the principle that service which culminates in regularization may, at least in part, be counted toward pension eligibility where necessary to meet the qualifying-service requirement.

The judgment does not identify or set out a specific pension-rule provision.

The petitioner’s Para Teacher engagement was made under a State policy, and she served continuously for ten years before being regularized against a sanctioned post.

The Department had used her services to teach students, and the circumstances leading to the Para Teachers’ engagement were not attributable to her.

The Court considered it arbitrary and discriminatory to disregard that service when assessing pension eligibility, particularly when similarly situated teachers who completed ten years after regularization had received pension.

Following Jagdev Singh, it held that the Para Teacher service could be counted for pension eligibility, while clarifying that this did not confer other service benefits or extend her service beyond ten years for that purpose.

For that purpose, her total service is to be treated as ten years only; no other benefit of the Para Teacher service was granted.

Regular pension is payable from December 2026, and arrears are to be paid within six months, failing which they will carry simple interest at 6% per annum from the date of judgment.