The Punjab and Haryana High Court has quashed a Punjab Government clarification that denied travel concession and old age allowance to retired employees facing pending proceedings. Justice Harpreet Singh Brar held that such benefits could not be withheld without legal backing. The court has directed release of dues within six weeks and declared that the order was not limited to the petitioners alone, but extended to all alike.
Allowing a writ petition, Justice Brar set aside the Finance Department’s circular dated December 22, 2022, which stated that retired officials drawing provisional pension would not be entitled to travel concession and old age allowance until exoneration in departmental or judicial proceedings.
The matter was placed before Justice Brar after retired employees of the Punjab State Warehousing Corporation challenged the denial of these benefits despite their entitlement under the applicable pension framework.
Justice Brar made it clear that executive or administrative instructions could not override statutory rules. “It is settled law that executive or administrative instructions do not have the authority to amend or override statutory rules, nor can any such instructions be issued in derogation of the statutory framework. This is for the reason that administrative directions, being non-statutory in character, do not carry the force of law,” Justice Brar ruled.
Referring to the Corporation’s Pension & Gratuity Scheme introduced in 1996, Justice Brar asserted that the employees were entitled to pensionary benefits on a par with State government employees, including gratuity, LTC and medical facilities. The Bench added that Punjab Civil Services Rules were applicable to the employees of the respondent-Corporation, including the petitioners, and they were entitled to the benefits flowing from there.
Justice Brar added there were no statutory provisions under the Punjab Civil Services Rules that empowered the employer to withhold payment of old age allowance and traveling concession during the pendency of departmental or judicial proceedings.
“Rather, the power to withhold the benefits was introduced for the first time through the clarification/instructions dated December 22, 2022…. This court is of the considered view that a person cannot be deprived of these retirement benefits without the authority of law, which is the Constitutional mandate enshrined in Article 300A of the Constitution,” Justice Brar added.
The Bench asserted that the denial of post-retirement monetary benefits during the pendency of proceedings was required to be supported by a specific statutory provision. “In the absence of such authority, it would amount to an executive curtailment of an accrued statutory entitlement,” Justice Brar observed.
Before parting, the Bench directed the State and other respondents to release the pending dues of old age allowance and traveling concession to the petitioners and all other identically circumstanced employees within six weeks. “It must be clarified that since the impugned circular/clarification dated December 22, 2022, stands quashed, the present judgement shall be treated as a judgment in rem, intending to give benefit to all similarly situated persons, whether they have approached this Court or not,” Justice Brar concluded.