Pay full benefits to retired woman staffer: HC to state

BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court directed the State Government to regularise the services of a retired woman employee of Sindhanur Taluk Development Board and pay consequential, as well as terminal benefits/ pension, which were denied to her on the ground that she was appointed on temporary basis. Allowing the petition filed by GP Sarojamma, resident of GN Chavan Eligere Oni, Lingasugur taluk of Raichur district, Justice Nagaprasanna said that the petitioner is entitled to consequential benefits only from March 22, 1992, the day on which she completed 10 years of service except arrears of salary.

The petitioner is entitled to payment of terminal benefit with effect from January 31, 2007, the date of her retirement, which should be calculated on the basis of the applicable payscale to similarly-placed employees, the judge said in the order passed recently. Sarojamma had moved the court in 2011, seeking directions for grant of terminal benefits payable on her retirement on January 31, 2007, on attaining the age of superannuation, after completing 25 years of service in the government. Though 13 years have lapsed after she submitted the records for benefits to the government, no order has been passed either granting regularisation or denying it, which undoubtedly left her condemned by penury to impecuniosities, as she was not given even a penny after her retirement.

Justice Nagaprasanna said that the action of the State Government in not paying the petitioner even a penny on her retirement would not behove its status of being a model employer. Therefore, the state should regularise the service of the petitioner, pay her terminal benefits after fixing the pay scale for the services rendered by her for 25 years, and grant her fruits of regularisation failing which the action of the state in extracting employment from the petitioner, not considering her case for regularisation and retiring her without a penny would amount to exploitation of human labour at the hands of the state, which can never be countenanced, but at the same time, the state cannot now be mulcted with payment of back wages, the judge added. Sarojamma was appointed on May 18, 1982, on temporary basis with a pay scale of Rs 280- 500 with all other allowances, by Taluk Development Board.