Pre-Regularisation Service as Seasonal Collection Amin Counts Towards Pension Eligibility, Not Quantum: Allahabad HC

Allahabad High Court holds that decades of seasonal and ad-hoc service before regularisation qualify an employee for pension, but quantum is reckoned only from the date of regular appointment.

A retired Collection Amin who worked for the Uttar Pradesh revenue administration from 1984 but was regularised only in September 2016 has been held eligible for pensionary benefits by Justice Anish Kumar Gupta, sitting singly at Allahabad. The court directed the State to compute and pay all retiral dues within eight weeks, treating the petitioner as eligible for pension on account of his pre-regularisation seasonal and ad-hoc service, while limiting the pension quantum to the period of regular service from 5 September 2016 to 31 July 2019. The judgment settles, for the petitioner's case, a distinction that has divided revenue department employees and their employer for years: whether earlier irregular service counts for eligibility alone or also inflates the pension amount.

A Service History Spanning Three Decades and Multiple Writ Petitions

Alakh Prakash Mishra was first engaged as a Seasonal Collection Amin on 25 February 1984. He was engaged continuously in that capacity until December 1991, when he was given a temporary appointment as Collection Amin for the period 15 December 1991 to 28 February 1992. That temporary appointment was not extended.

Aggrieved, the petitioner filed Writ Petition No. 5973 of 1992. An interim order dated 25 February 1992 allowed him to continue as an ad-hoc Collection Amin. He remained in that position under the shelter of the interim order until 8 November 2006, when this Court disposed of the writ petition with a direction to the Collector, Jhansi, to consider his representation for regularisation and pass a speaking order within two months.

The District Magistrate, Jhansi, rejected the representation on 12 November 2007, holding that the petitioner's case for regularisation would be considered in terms of seniority and eligibility under the 35% quota for Seasonal Collection Amins prescribed by the Uttar Pradesh Collection Amins’ Service Rules, 1974, but simultaneously stopping him from working. The petitioner challenged that rejection in Writ-A No. 60795 of 2007.

On 28 March 2012, this Court quashed the order dated 12 November 2007 and directed the District Magistrate to re-engage the petitioner as Seasonal Collection Amin and to consider his claim for regular appointment within three months, with a further direction that his performance in the last four fasli prior to 2006 be taken into account since it was the respondents' illegal action that had prevented him from working after 2006.

Pursuant to the 2012 order, the petitioner was re-engaged as Seasonal Collection Amin and his name appeared at Serial No. 27 in a seniority list prepared on 7 June 2012. He was thereafter regularised on the post of Collection Amin on probation vide order dated 3 September 2016 and joined on 5 September 2016. He was confirmed on 27 November 2018 and retired on 31 July 2019.

The Pension Dispute

After retirement, the petitioner claimed pension and other retiral dues by counting his entire length of service — as Seasonal Collection Amin from 1984, as temporary and ad-hoc Collection Amin, and as regular Collection Amin. He relied on a letter dated 4 June 2019 issued by the Additional District Magistrate, Jhansi, which referenced a Government Order dated 30 April 2019 directing that services rendered as ad-hoc, work-charge, contract, seasonal or fixed-pay employees be considered for retiral benefits.

The respondents rejected his claim by order dated 2 March 2020. Their position, maintained in the counter affidavit, was that since the petitioner was regularly appointed only in September 2016, the old pension scheme was not available to him. The State further argued that he had worked as a regular employee for only 2 years, 10 months and 16 days, which was insufficient for pension eligibility.

The petitioner filed Writ-A No. 20364 of 2019 seeking a direction to grant retiral dues and pension. His earlier writ, Writ-A No. 15905 of 2014, had challenged the order dated 13 August 2012 passed by the Collector, Jhansi, but that order had become infructuous upon his regularisation in 2016. Both petitions were taken up together and decided by a common order.

The Competing Legal Positions

Counsel for the petitioner relied on two coordinate bench judgments of this Court: the judgment in Kaushal Kishore Chaubey and 4 Others v. State of U.P. and 4 Others (Writ-A No. 5817 of 2020, decided on 8 October 2021) and the judgment in Rajendra Bahadur Singh and 4 Others v. State of U.P. and Others (Writ-A No. 9522 of 2024, decided on 21 October 2024). Both had directed that pensionary benefits be computed by taking into account the entire service including service as Seasonal Collection Amin. Counsel also relied on the Supreme Court's decision in Prem Singh v. State of U.P.: 2019 AIR SC 516, which held that work-charged service prior to regularisation must be counted as qualifying service for pension.

The State's Standing Counsel countered with the Supreme Court's later decision in Uday Pratap Thakur and Anr. v. State of Bihar and Ors. (Civil Appeal No. 31155 of 2023, decided on 28 April 2023), which clarified Prem Singh. In Uday Pratap Thakur, the Supreme Court held that previous work-charged service can be counted only for the purpose of qualifying service for pension, not for computing the quantum of pension. It further upheld Bihar's Work-charge Establishment Revised Service Condition Repealing Rule, 2013, under which Rule 5(v) treats five years of work-charged service as equivalent to one year of regular service for qualifying service purposes.

The State argued that even applying this one-in-five formula generously — assuming the petitioner worked continuously from 1984 to 2016, a span of 32 years — the equivalent qualifying service would be approximately 6 years and 5 months. Adding that to the 2 years, 10 months and 16 days of regular service still would not reach the 10-year threshold for pension eligibility. The State sought dismissal of the petition.

How the Court Reasoned

Justice Gupta examined the factual timeline carefully. The court found it undisputed that the petitioner worked as Seasonal Collection Amin from February 1984, was temporarily appointed through 28 February 1992, continued as ad-hoc Collection Amin under the interim order until 8 January 2008 (when services were effectively stopped following the rejection of regularisation), was re-engaged as Seasonal Collection Amin in 2012 pursuant to the court's direction, was regularised on 5 September 2016, confirmed on 27 November 2018, and retired on 31 July 2019.

On the law, the court held that Prem Singh read with Uday Pratap Thakur “categorically settled” that previous service as ad-hoc, work-charged, seasonal or temporary must be counted for determining qualifying service for pension, but computation of the pension amount is to be done only on the basis of regular service.

The court declined to apply the Bihar one-in-five formula mechanically. It took a different approach: the court counted the petitioner's pre-regularisation service from 1984 to 2008 and from 2012 to 2016 in full for the purpose of determining whether the minimum qualifying service of 10 years was met. On that reading, the court found that the petitioner comfortably crossed the 10-year threshold and was therefore eligible for pension.

The distinction drawn in Uday Pratap Thakur between eligibility and quantum was applied in the petitioner's favour on eligibility, and against him on quantum. Pension, the court directed, would be calculated solely on the basis of regular service rendered from 5 September 2016 to 31 July 2019.

The court also considered and distinguished the reasoning in Kaushal Kishore Chaubey, where a coordinate bench had directed pension to be computed by taking the entire service into account. That judgment had rested on the proposition that Seasonal Collection Amins discharged duties identical to regular Collection Amins, were extended the same benefits, and denying them pension would be arbitrary and contrary to Article 14 of the Constitution. While the present court acknowledged those findings, it applied the subsequent Supreme Court clarification in Uday Pratap Thakur to confine pension computation to the regular service period alone.

Outcome

Justice Gupta disposed of Writ-A No. 20364 of 2019 with the following directions:

The petitioner is held eligible for pensionary benefits and retiral dues by virtue of his pre-regularisation service as Seasonal Collection Amin and ad-hoc Collection Amin. The quantum of pension and retiral dues is to be calculated on the basis of regular service rendered from 5 September 2016 to 31 July 2019. The respondents are directed to calculate and pay all retiral dues and sanction the pension within eight weeks from the date of communication of the certified copy of the order.

Writ-A No. 15905 of 2014, which had challenged the order dated 13 August 2012 and sought regularisation, was dismissed as infructuous since regularisation had already been granted to the petitioner on 5 September 2016.