Supreme Court: Daily-wage workers made permanent by 1988 Gujarat Resolution get last-day-of-June increment and revised pension

The Court noted it was an admitted fact that all the appellants had served in the Irrigation Department of the State of Gujarat for more than 30 years. The Government Resolution dated 17.10.1988 accepted the recommendations of a Committee chaired by the Minister of the Roads and Buildings Department. Under it, daily-wage skilled workers who had completed 10 years of service or more as on 01.10.1988 were to be considered permanent, kept in the running payscale of the cadre, paid dearness allowance, house rent allowance and local compensatory allowance, and made entitled to retiral benefits, gratuity and provident fund. Their superannuation age was fixed at 60 years and the period spent in permanent employment was pensionable.

The Additional Solicitor General did not dispute that the petitioners belonged to this category. Since they were treated as permanent employees for payscale, allowances, pension and retirement benefits, the Court held that the plea that they were not entitled to the increment only because they were daily wagers could not be countenanced. The argument, it said, appeared to have been made by ignoring the Resolution and the benefits flowing from it. The contention that C.P. Mundinamani had no application to them was also without merit.

The Court then set out the position after that decision. The ratio of that decision was applied in Union of India v. M. Siddaraj (Civil Appeal No. 3933 of 2023, decided on 19.05.2023). By an interim order of 06.09.2024 and a final order of 20.02.2025 on miscellaneous applications, the Court laid down that the Mundinamani judgment would operate for third parties from the date of that judgment, that persons who had filed writ petitions and succeeded would get the benefit as res judicata, and that clause (d) was modified to provide that where a retired employee had filed an application for intervention, a writ petition or an original application, enhanced pension including one increment would be payable for three years prior to the month of filing. Excess payments already made were not to be recovered. The ratio of the two decisions was therefore conditioned by the order of 20.02.2025.

As the appellants filed their writ petition in 2022, they were covered by modified clause (d) and were entitled to the increment and pension computed with it. The other petitioners in Special Civil Application No. 20921 of 2022, who had not joined the appeal and were arrayed as proforma respondent Nos. 5 to 11, were held entitled to the same benefit. The Court added that no interest was payable on the arrears, as settled in Madhya Pradesh Purv Kshetra Vidyut Vitran Company Ltd. v. Vidyut Mandal Pension Samaj (C.A. 15097 of 2025, decided on 19.12.2025), but authorities must still keep to the time limits fixed by courts, failing which interest would run from the date of default.

The Court did not go into the individual facts of each appellant or proforma respondent. It left the authorities to examine each case in the light of the date of retirement, work out the amounts under modified clause (d) of the order of 20.02.2025, and release them within 30 days from the date of the judgment, failing which interest at 6 per cent per annum is payable from then till payment. The appeal was allowed in those terms, pending applications were disposed of, and parties were left to bear their own costs.