Retired Punjab Employee’s 5 Military-Service Increments Restored As P&H HC Says His 1996 Grant Could Not Be Reopened

The petitioner served in the Indian Army from 26 September 1963 to 30 September 1978 and later joined the Punjab Government.

By order dated 24 April 1996, he was granted nine increments for military service during the first and second national emergencies. After the Accountant General objected that five increments relating to the second emergency were inadmissible, the Department withdrew those increments and ordered recovery, revising his pay and retiral benefits. The petitioner challenged both orders by writ petition.

The Punjab Government’s letter dated 5 August 2002 clarified that cases in which emergency-period military-service benefits had been granted up to 13 October 1998 were not to be reconsidered; cases received after that date were to be considered in light of the Supreme Court’s judgment in Chitaranjan Singh Cheema, Junior Sports Officer and another v. Government of Punjab and others, 1997(1) SLR 697, and the Government’s letter dated 13 October 1998, with withdrawal and recovery contemplated where benefits had been granted contrary to that judgment.

The Court treated this clarification as governing the petitioner’s case because his benefit had been granted before the specified date.

The petitioner’s increments were granted on 24 April 1996, before the 13 October 1998 cutoff. The 5 August 2002 clarification expressly excluded from reconsideration cases in which the benefit had been granted by that cutoff.

The Court therefore held that the respondents’ withdrawal and recovery orders could not stand because they had been passed without applying the clarification to the petitioner’s case.

Pending miscellaneous applications, if any, were disposed of.