BENGALURU: The state must understand that a pension is not a bounty or a favour to be dispensed at its convenience, but a lawful entitlement to be honoured when it falls due, the Karnataka High Court said.
A division bench of Justice M Nagaprasanna and Justice Hema Kulkarni made these observations while dismissing the state government’s appeal challenging the single judge’s order directing payment of pensionary benefits to Chidananda Reddy S Patil under the Old Pension Scheme (OPS).
The bench ordered that Reddy is entitled to pension under the OPS, reckoning his qualifying service in accordance with law, with effect from the date following his superannuation on December 31, 2024, together with all consequential retiral and terminal benefits and arrears shall carry interest at the rate of 6 percent annum.
Reddy joined Karnataka University as a lecturer in 1996 and was appointed professor at Karnataka State Law University in 2013, Hubballi. He attained the age of superannuation on December 31, 2024.
He was denied pension on the premise that the service rendered by him in the Karnataka University, between 1996 and 2013, could not be reckoned for determining his eligibility under the OPS.
The stand of the authorities of the state is that, notwithstanding his initial entry into service in 1996 and his subsequent movement to the law university, through a technical resignation, he must be brought within the fold of the New Pension Scheme (NPS).
The HC single bench, who allowed his petition on March 17, 2026, directing payment of pension to him. Against this order, an appeal was preferred by the state government.
Dismissing it, the division bench noted that nearly 17 years of service rendered in Karnataka University cannot be treated as a mere historical footnote in his service career; its legal consequences must be determined in the light of the governing rules and the contemporaneous records.
However, the state, by adopting such a constricted interpretation of the governing service rules, has sought to efface nearly 17 years of his earlier service from the reckoning of his pensionary entitlement.
The action of the state is not merely an erroneous understanding of the governing provisions; it is an approach which strikes at the very foundation of continuity of service recognised by the statutory rules, the court added.