Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Sept 1: High Court has held the constables appointed in J&K Police entitled for Old Pension Scheme (OPS) despite their appointment after scrapping of such scheme in 2010.
The aggrieved constables were denied the benefits of OPS by the department on the ground that they were appointed at the time when the OPS was not in force.
They approached the court with the contention that they were selected in pursuance of notification issued in the year 2008 followed by the selection process completed by the authorities in 2009, however formal appointment orders were issued in 2010.
They submitted that they could not be denied the benefit of the Old Pension Scheme merely because their formal appointment orders came to be issued in the year 2010 as the delay in issuance of formal appointment orders was attributed to the administration.
The Division Bench of Justice Sanjeev Kumar and Justice Sanjay Parihar allowed their plea by recording that the formal orders of appointment in case of the aggrieved constable were delayed because of administrative reasons etc for which the aggrieved constables were neither responsible nor accountable for.
“That the pension schemes are in the nature of welfare measures adopted by the Government to the advantage of its employees. Indisputably, the Old Pension Scheme is more beneficial than the New Pension Scheme and, therefore, depriving the respondent-constables of the benefit of the Old Pension Scheme is to their prejudice. In such a situation, the Courts ought to adopt a liberal approach and lean in favour of the employees seeking the benefit of a particular pension scheme beneficial to them”, read the judgment.
The court directed that these constables shall be deemed to have been appointed as Constables in J&K Police prior to 01.01.2010 and, therefore, they shall be held entitled to the benefit of the Pension Rules as were existing and applicable to the Government employees prior to 01.01.2010.
The court said that the time taken by the department to conclude the selection process, which is more than a year, cannot, by any stretch of reasoning, be treated as reasonable. Had the department proceeded with the selection process with requisite promptitude, there was every possibility of all these constables having been appointed much before 01.01.2010.
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