No Post-Retiral Benefits for Employees of Self-Financing Institutes Without Specific Rules: Allahabad High Court The Allahabad High Court has ruled that employees of self-financing institutes affiliated with a university are not entitled to post-retirement benefits such as pension and gratuity unless specific service rules or statutory provisions explicitly grant them. The court clarified that the mere status of an institute as an “integral part” of a university does not automatically entitle its staff to pensionary benefits, especially when the financial burden for such benefits cannot be transferred to the public exchequer. The judgment, delivered by Justice Saurabh Shyam Shamshery, was issued in the case of Rekha Singh vs. Union of India and Others (WRIT – A No. 4877 of 2021). Rekha Singh, a former Director at the Institute of Correspondence Courses and Continuing Education (ICC&CE), University of Allahabad, had sought post-retirement benefits after her retirement on August 31, 2017. She claimed entitlement to pension, gratuity, and provident fund, arguing that her service conditions were protected under the University of Allahabad Act, 2005. The court examined the petitioner’s case against the backdrop of earlier rulings. In 2016, the same court had directed the university to pay Rekha Singh her salary from November 2014 to her retirement date, citing that ICC&CE was a self-financing institute. The court had then ruled that the financial liability for her salary could not fall on the public exchequer. When the university rejected her post-retirement claims in 2019, citing the institute’s temporary and self-financed nature, she filed the current petition.#allahabad_high_court #rekha_singh #university_of_allahabad #icc_ce #saurabh_shyam_shamshery
No Pension Without Enabling Rule: Allahabad High Court Rejects Retirement Benefits Claim Of Self-Financed Institute Employee The Allahabad High Court has dismissed a petition filed by a retired employee of the Institute of Correspondence Courses and Continuing Education (ICC&CE), a self-financed unit of the University of Allahabad, seeking post-retirement benefits. The court ruled that pension and other retirement entitlements cannot be granted unless explicitly provided for by a statutory rule or scheme. It emphasized that the doctrine of “negative equality” cannot be used to extend benefits simply because some employees received them, even if the reasoning was flawed. The petitioner, Rekha Singh, had previously served as an Assistant Director/Director at the ICC&CE and retired in 2017. After her retirement, she approached the court seeking payment of salary from November 2014 to her retirement date, which was initially granted in 2018. The decision was later upheld by the Supreme Court when the university challenged it. However, Singh later sought additional benefits, including pension, gratuity, and provident fund entitlements. The university rejected her claim, arguing that the ICC&CE was a temporary, self-financing institution and that its employees were hired on a contractual basis without provisions for post-retirement benefits. Singh argued that the ICC&CE was an integral part of the university and that its employees were effectively under the university’s administrative control. She also cited Section 5(d) of the University of Allahabad Act, 2005, which she claimed protected the service conditions of employees when the university transitioned from a state to a central institution.#supreme_court #allahabad_high_court #rekha_singh #university_of_allahabad #icc_ce
