Petitioner challenged VRS schemes excluding those on sabbatical leave as arbitrary under Article 14, arguing exclusions affected eligibility based on annual increments during leave. Court held exclusion was valid relating to pay scale calculations, dismissing the writ petition.
Writ petition dismissed with no order as to costs.
This page shows the compact analysis of this judgement. The full analysis — procedural history, issue-by-issue holdings with ratio and obiter, advocates, and paragraph-level evidence for every claim — is being added to the record in batches and will appear here when this judgement has been through it.
SH. SHAILENDER ARORA ..... Petitioner Through: Dr. N. K. Khetarpal, Advocate.
versus
STEEL AUTHORITY OF INDIA LTD. ..... Respondent Through: Mr. Siddharth Yadav, Advocate with Mr. Wasim Ashraf, Advocate.
CORAM:
HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE VALMIKI J.MEHTA
To be referred to the Reporter or not? YES
VALMIKI J. MEHTA, J (ORAL)
W.P.(C) No.1258/2003 Page 1 of 9
of persons who were on sabbatical leave, yet, petitioner under the VRS schemes should be granted voluntary retirement because the VRS schemes have to be declared as arbitrary because even if sabbatical leave period is excluded, yet persons such as the petitioner fulfils the eligibility criteria of number of years of service being 10 years and having age of above 40 years so as to get VRS under the VRS Schemes of 2001 and 2002-03.
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28.2.2001 up to 28.2.2003. Petitioner pleads that as per the applicable sabbatical leave Rules, the sabbatical period was not to be counted as a break in service. Petitioner then pleads that the respondent came out with VRS Schemes in the years 2001 and 2002-03, and that the petitioner applied for voluntary retirement under the said schemes, but the respondent refused to grant voluntary retirement on the ground that each of the VRS Schemes contained a clause that benefit of VRS Schemes would not be available to those employees who were either serving a bond period, or were on study leave or were on sponsorship or were on sabbatical leave etc etc. Petitioner pleads that even if the period of sabbatical leave of the petitioner is excluded for determining the qualifying years of service to become eligible for VRS schemes, the petitioner still fulfils the eligibility criteria for grant of VRS because eligibility criteria for grant of VRS is of 10 years service and employee being above 40 years, and petitioner even if the sabbatical leave period is excluded would have service period of around 16 years and that the petitioner admittedly was over 40 years of age.
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leave, was rightly denied voluntary retirement under the VRS schemes of 2001 and 2002-03.
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retirement on account of having more than 10 years of service and being above 40 years of age, is a misconceived contention. I cannot agree with the argument urged on behalf of the petitioner, inasmuch as, counsel for the respondent rightly contends that the issue is not of fulfilling the eligibility criteria for grant of voluntary retirement but the issue is that VRS package which is a golden handshake package includes a lump sum severance amount and which lump sum severance amount has to be calculated as per the pay scale of an employee on the date of the application for VRS, i.e even if the employee fulfills the eligibility criteria for grant of VRS by excluding sabbatical leave period, yet these employees are rightly excluded because when an employee who is on sabbatical leave such as the petitioner rejoins the services of the employer, then on the rejoining of such employee after sabbatical leave his pay is at the pay scale which would be prevalent on the date of rejoining of the employee with the employer and on which basis of higher pay the VRS package is calculated. Putting it in other words, since the date of rejoining of an employee after three years of service such as in the case of petitioner would mean that the pay scale which would be payable to such an employee as the petitioner, would
be the pay scale after three years of sabbatical leave with annual increments and not that pay scale which was payable when the
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employee commenced sabbatical leave, consequently when the voluntary retirement package has to be drawn up, employees on sabbatical leave would get benefit of higher pay scale prevalent on the date of rejoining without having worked in the sabbatical leave period, and hence, such employees have been rightly excluded from the benefits of VRS scheme and hence there is no violation of Article 14 of the Constitution of India when the VRS schemes of the respondent excludes persons on sabbatical leave.
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floated by the employer for reducing the workforce of the employer. In the case of Asger Ibrahim Amin (supra) resignation was directed to
be taken as a case of voluntary retirement instead of resignation, and therefore, facts and ratio of the said case of Asger Ibrahim Amin (supra) would have no application in the present case where in case the voluntary retirement application is accepted, petitioner would not have got normal benefits of ordinary retirement/superannuation but in addition to the ordinary benefits of normal superannuation, he would also have been entitled to a golden handshake being an additional lump sum severance package.
costs.
MARCH 08, 2017 VALMIKI J. MEHTA, J Ne
W.P.(C) No.1258/2003 Page 9 of 9
2 issues framed by the court
Whether VRS schemes that exclude employees on sabbatical leave violate Article 14 of the Constitution even if excluding that period meets eligibility criteria.
Whether an employee on sabbatical leave is unfairly discriminated against regarding voluntary retirement benefits under service rules.
Colour shows how this judgement treated each authority
Asger Ibrahim Amin Vs. Life Insurance Corporation of IndiaDistinguished¶33
2015 (10) SCALE 639
Sh. Shailender Arora
Steel Authority of India Ltd.
Valmiki J. Mehta
As recorded by the court registry
A petition under Article 226 of the Constitution asking a High Court to issue a writ against the State or a public authority in a civil matter.
Judgements on the same questions, provisions and authorities, from every court
