Calcutta High Court orders pension review for clerk over undisclosed rule

“It is common knowledge that an unemployed youth files several applications simultaneously whenever a vacancy notice is published. Getting a job becomes the primary concern. There is no bar to applying for jobs in various departments at the same time. There is always uncertainty with regard to selection in a public recruitment process”. the September 7 order read.

Justices Amrita Sinha and Biswaroop Chowdhry noted that one cannot vouch that he will be selected for a job in a recruitment process when one files an application.

The employee claimed that he had applied for the post of peon after seeing a paper publication that was published in May, 2002 and that he had also applied for a job in response to another paper publication for the post of lower grade clerk in the year 2005. According to the employee, he got selected for the post of peon and reported for duty on September 15, 2006.

The employee stated that while he was working as a peon, the result for the post of lower grade clerk was declared in the year 2007, and he was selected. Consequently, the employee resigned from the post of peon, specifically providing the reason that he had been selected for the post of lower grade clerk and that he intended to join the job.

According to the judgment, the employee joined the new job on March 27, 2007, and has been serving ever since. The appointment order of the employee in the post of lower grade clerk clearly mentioned that he would fall under the New Pension Scheme, 2004. In a communication dated March 3, 2023, the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievance and Pension (Department of Personnel and Training) provided a one-time option to “central government civil employees” to get included under the old pension scheme.

The employee claimed that on August 8, 2023, he applied to be included in the old pension scheme, but his request was rejected with the remark that “the government servant resigned from the post of peon directly without applying for ‘technical resignation’”. The employee challenged the rejection before the Central Administrative Tribunal, which was dismissed on September 18, 2025.

‘Technical resignation’

Advocates Gopala Binnu Kumar and Samson Stephen, appearing for the employee, argued that “as he disclosed the reason for resignation at the time of joining the new post, as such, his resignation ought to be treated as technical resignation,” and he should be included under the old pension rules.

Advocate Rakesh Kumar, representing the authorities, submitted that the employee “ought to have intimated the details of his prior pending application for job in the post of lower grade clerk when he joined the post of Peon” and since he did not disclose the prior job application, he would fall under the New Pension Scheme and not the old one.

‘Constrictive approach’

The high court observed that “at the time of joining in the post of peon, the petitioner (employee) was never specifically informed that he ought to have disclosed the details of all other applications for jobs that he made. No document has been produced by the respondents (authorities) to suggest that the appointment order in the post of peon prescribes that the employee is required to disclose all other pending applications for jobs made by the employee”.

The court noted that “at the time of tendering resignation, he (employee) distinctly mentioned that as he got selected in the post of lower grade clerk and he intended to join the said post, he was tendering his resignation. The authority never raised any issue at that point of time”. The court ruled that employers must clearly publish and share all official rules and disclosure requirements with employees as soon as they are hired.

The high court stated that “the authority applied a very strict and constrictive approach to consider the application of the petitioner” and directed the authorities to reconsider the application of the employee without raising the issue of technical resignation and pass a reasoned decision in the case and communicate it to the employee “at the earliest but positively within a period of six weeks”.