Employees of Autonomous Bodies Cannot Be Treated At Par With the Central Govt Employees With Regards to Pension: Delhi HC [Read Judgment]

The Division Bench of Justice Muralidhar and Justice Talwant Singh has held that the benefits of the pension under the Civil Services Rules cannot be extended to Autonomous Bodies without the concurrence of the Finance Ministry.

In the present case, there were two writ petitions wherein the common issue before the court was to rule upon the applicability of the Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules, 1972 to Autonomous Bodies (ABs).

The two Petitioners in the case, Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, had argued that ABs are established by the Government to discharge activities related to governmental functions, but they are given

the autonomy to do so in accordance with their own set of Memorandum of Associations/Rules, etc. Therefore, their employees cannot be treated as the central government employees.

It was also argued by the Petitioner that these Autonomous Bodies already have their own pension schemes, and extending the Civil Services (Pension) Rules to them would be a significant economic burden on the exchequer.

The Petitioners also submitted that the employees of the Respondent institute were appointed with the condition of entitlement of benefits of Contributory Provident Fund Scheme. So, they cannot claim for shift over from CPF Scheme to GPF-cum-Pension Scheme as a matter of right.

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Respondents, which included the employees association of Indian Institute of Mass Communication, had argued that the ABs should be considered under the Pension Rules as they are fully funded by the government.

It was also argued by the Respondents that in an OM dated 1/05/1987, the Ministry of Finance had agreed to extend the Pension Rules to ABs. However, the Ministry had denied both the concurrence with the said OM as well as the fact that it's binding because the requisite permission of the other Minister was not taken.

While denying the relief to the Respondents, the court noted that the employees of ABs are not at par with the employees of Central Government and OM dated 1st May, 1987 does not automatically cover employees of ABs.

The court also highlighted that where there is no concurrence of the Ministry of Finance, in that case the benefit of the GPF-cum-Pension Scheme cannot be extended to the employees of ABs in lieu of the CPF Scheme already prevailing there