NEW DELHI : The Supreme Court has pulled up the Rajasthan Government for unnecessary litigation on pension to the lecturers in selection grade who retired between 1991 and 2004 and dismissed its appeals while ordering it to pay the benefit of higher pension to them within three months, failing which it has to pay interest @ 9% per annum.
The Bench of Justices Dipak Misra and Abhay Manohar Sapre upheld the High Court’’s judgment while observing that it will be appropriate on the part of the employers to show a definite and correct attitude towards employees instead of litigating to deny their legitimate benefits.
“It is the duty of the State Government to avoid unwarranted litigations and not to encourage any litigation for the sake of litigation,” the Bench said in its judgment passed on Thursday.
Its reprimand to the state government came in the context of the retired lecturers engaged into litigation by the government for the last five years.
The single judge of the Rajasthan High Court ruled in their favour in September 2011, but the government moved the division bench which remitted the case back to the single judge. When the government again lost, it took the case back to the division bench which upheld the single judge’’s ruling and thus the government came in appeal to the Supreme Court.
Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar, who appeared for the state government, sought to prevent grant of higher pension, pleading that it will put a heavy financial burden on the state.
