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Brahma Singh and Others v. Union of India and Others

Writ Petition (Civil) · 2020 INSC 134Decided 5 Feb 2020
Writ Petition (Civil) No. 59 of 2019
Justice L. Nageswara Rao · Justice Deepak Gupta

Background

The petitioners were serving and retired employees of the Supreme Court Legal Aid Committee / Supreme Court Legal Services Committee, some of whom had joined as far back as 1981. The Union of India refused to count their service rendered before the Supreme Court Legal Services Committee Rules, 2000 came into force towards their pension-qualifying service, denying them credit for more than 18 years of work in some cases. The employees argued their case was squarely covered by an earlier favourable judgment of the Supreme Court in a 2008 writ petition on the same point.

Decision Breakdown

The Court traced the institutional history, from the Supreme Court Legal Aid Committee created by executive instructions in 1981, through the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987, to the 2000 Rules, and found that the employees had served continuously and without any legal break throughout. It held that no artificial distinction could be drawn between service rendered before and after the 2000 Rules took effect, and that the entire service must count towards pension and retiral benefits. It also rejected the Union's technical objection that the point should have been raised in the earlier 2008 litigation, holding that writ proceedings are not barred by the civil-procedure rule against splitting claims. The petition was allowed.

Lesson Learnt

Long-serving government or quasi-government employees cannot be denied pension credit for earlier years of continuous service merely because the formal rules governing their post were framed later: uninterrupted actual service counts, regardless of when the governing rules were notified.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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