Landmark and beneficial decision for such Professors / Teacher

Rules 33 and 48 of the MCS (Pension) Rules, 1982 – Section 9 of the Contract Act – Condonation of technical break of 674 days in service of the petitioner. 

FACTS – The petitioner worked as Lecturer in the respondent no.1 Poona Pharmacy College from 4.10.1999 to 15.4.2000 and continued in service till 30.4.2009 with technical breaks since the post was reserved for ST and every time he was given fresh appointment letters. Thus, the petitioner worked on stop gap arrangement for 10 years with the approval of Director of Technical Education.

On 11.7.2009, the petitioner was appointed on open category post and rendered his services without any interruption till his superannuation on 30.9.2020 without pension.

There was gap of 674 days partly due to technical breaks and partly for vacations.  There was shortage of one month and 16 days for qualifying service to get pension and benefits.

HELD that even if the service of the petitioner from 1999 to 2009 was labelled as “temporary”, the said service without interruption followed by confirmation in the same post must count as qualifying service for pension, the respondent no.3 erred in computing qualifying service, that the petitioner continued to serve even during technical breaks & paid salary for that period, the continued “contracts” for years and even decades are unlawful & impermissible, the respondent no.3 seems to have confused that “gap in appointment letters” to mean “gap in service”, there was no explanation as post reserved post was not filled in and no efforts were shown to have been made to fill in the said post.  The writ petition was allowed.

Writ Petition No.2187 of 2022 – Dr.Pradeep Rangrao Nalawade Vs. Poona College of Pharmacy and others.