Similar duties or common funding no basis for service parity: High Court

Srinagar, Dec 18: The High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh has held that mere similarity in duties or funding from a common source does not itself confer parity in service conditions, including post-retirement pension benefits, upon employees of different institutions.

A bench of Justice Sanjay Dhar said this while dismissing a plea by J&K Sainik School Mansbal’s sixty serving and retired employees who had sought court’s intervention to direct the authorities to grant pensionary benefits to them on attaining the age of superannuation in accordance with the scheme as was in vogue before 2010 besides for arrears of pension on superannuation to those who have already retired from service.

They had also sought direction to treat and adjust their CP Fund as a General Provident Fund as was applicable to the Government employees.

While dealing with the plea, the court noted that “merely because the duties performed by two sets of employees may be similar or the two sets of employees pertaining to two different institutions are being funded from a single source, would not be in itself a ground to claim parity in service conditions between the two sets of employees.”

The court observed that the aggrieved employees could not claim parity in service conditions pertaining to post-retirement pension either with the employees of other Sainik schools of the Country or with other institutions which are funded by the Government of Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

In their plea, the aggrieved employees’ contention was that while they receive pay and retiral benefits such as gratuity and leave salary, they are not entitled to a pension on superannuation.

They said that the Government of India had extended pensionary benefits to Sainik School employees across the country in 1988, but the scheme was not made applicable to J&K Sainik School as it was established by the erstwhile State Government.

Their further contention was that the issue of extending pension was repeatedly discussed and approved in principle by the School’s Executive Committee and Board of Governors over the years, including an approval by the then Chief Minister in 2005 but the scheme remained unimplemented due to lack of financial and administrative concurrence.

“The delay was the result of bureaucratic wrangles,” they said.

Moreover, they contended that a pension is a form of social security, asserting parity with government employees and staff of other Sainik Schools, particularly for those appointed before 2010.

The petitioners said that they, being similarly situated to the employees of other Sainik schools of the Country had been discriminated against as they were left out of the pension scheme.

They submitted that the respondents could not resile from the earlier decision to deny them the benefits.

DAG, Hakim Aman Ali on behalf of the government, opposed the petition with the contention that J&K Sainik School, Mansbal is run by a separate society and is fully funded by the J&K Government, unlike other Sainik Schools which function under the Ministry of Defence.

“Therefore, its employees cannot claim parity with other Sainik Schools which function under the Ministry of Defence,” he said.