SALAHUDDIN CHAUDHRI (MEMBER).--The appellant, Muti-ulHaq, was Assistant General Manager, Pakistan Railways Headquarters Office, Lahore. He was retired with effect from 22-12-1983 by the President of Pakistan in exercise of the powers conferred by clause (ii) of section 13 of the Civil Servants Act, 1973. The amount of his pension as well as of commutation/gratuity was fixed with reference to the length of service he had put in including the period of leave preparatory to retirement which expired on 5-11-1984. This mode of determining the quantum of pension etc., however, became the cause of grievance to the appellant. In his view, he was entitled to full pension as admissible on completion of thirty years of service in terms of para. 5 of the Secretary, Establishment Division's D.O. Letter No, CSA-Sec-13 (ii)/Rev/82, dated 18-4-1982 (to be reproduced later in this order). The representation to the competent authority having failed, the appellant came to this Tribunal for redress by way of this appeal.
2. The facts in the background are that in 1979 it was decided by the President of Pakistan that the cases of all officers who would be completing 25 years of service qualifying for pension and other retirement benefits on the 31st of December, 1979, be reviewed with a view to retiring in the public interest in terms of section 13 of the Civil Servants Act, 1973 those officers who had outlived their usefulness in the Government. With a view to implementing this decision a Summary containing proposals in regard to the modalities to be observed, was submitted to the President by the then Establishment Secretary on 31-10-1979. It would be of advantage to reproduce here paragraphs of the said Summary relevant to the issue in dispute: "7. This exercise is being undertaken not only for weeding out undesirable elements but also those Government servants who have outlived their usefulness in particular grades and also because of the inflated size of certain departments. Strictly speaking this is not a punitive exercise; really the Government is exercising its right to keep only the best people in employment after they have put in 25 years of qualifying service. In view of this it is expedient that somewhat liberal terms should be given on retirement, and therefore, it is proposed that all those persons who will be retired as .a result of this review, will be entitled to--
(i) Full pension which is at present admissible to the Government servants after completion of 30 years of qualifying service only;
(ii) LPR for 365 days or 'Leave on Full Pay at their credit' whichever is more provided, it shall not extend beyond the age of 60 years. LPR or Leave on Full pay at credit may be taken in the manner prescribed in the rules for the LPR i,e, either on full pay, or partly on full pay and partly on half pay or entirely on half pay at the discretion of Government servants.
(iii) The retention of official accommodation would be governed under the existing rules.
These measures will provide the retiring officers/officials adequate opportunity and time to get adjusted after their retirement.
This exercise shall in future be conducted every year in the month of September in accordance with the procedure prescribed above in respect of all Government servants serving under the Government and its autonomous and semi-autonomous corporations and other subsidiary organisations under its control and those retired will get the same retirement benefits.
9. These benefits will not be available to persons retired compulsorily on disciplinary grounds or under any other rules in force. They will continue to be governed by normal rules."
The COS to the President made the following endorsement before putting up the Summary for the approval of the President.
"In the past, action under section 13 of the Civil Servants Act, 1973 was taken on an ad hoc basis as the system was not institutionalized. This has had an unsatisfactory effect in that while some odd cases were picked up for review, a great majority of them were never considered. Justice demands that a common yardstick be applied in all cases. This summary suggests such a course which appears fair and equitable.
As regards para 7, those retired may be entitled to:--
(a) Leave under the normal rules.
(b) Retain official accommodation as per existing rules.
(c) Full pension as recommended in para 7 (i). Since this would constitute a one-time act of special consideration by the Government, it should not be applied to those officials whose retirement is recommended for the following reasons:-
(1) Questionable reputation of corruption or living beyond means.
(2) Involvement in financial irregularities.
(3) Persistent indifferent record of service."
He also proposed that consideration of para. 8 above might be taken up later separately. The proposals, referred to above, received the President's approval and instructions were accordingly issued to all the Secretaries by the Establishment Secretary.
3. By early 1981 the review of all officers in the Federal Government who had completed 25 years of qualifying service on 31-12-1979 was completed. In April, 1981, the Secretary, Establishment Division, in pursuance of para. 8 of Summary dated 31-10-1979, submitted another Summary to the President of Pakistan proposing that the review exercise be institutionalised and undertaken every year. In sub-para (g) of para. 3 of the Summary, it was again proposed that the officers to be retired on completion of 25 years qualifying service as a result of the review shall be entitled to full pension as is admissible on completion of thirty years or attaining the prescribed age of superannuation whichever is earlier. This sub-para reads as under:- "(g) The retirement shall be on the same lines, as approved by the President in respect of the recent review, viz. LPR (if leave is due), and full pension (which is admissible on completion of 30 years or attaining the prescribed age of superannuation, whichever is earlier:):"
The other paras in the summary related to procedural matters including the constitution of the Review Committees etc. The COS to the President made the following endorsement in para. 13: "13. For the current year the review be done on the following basis:
(a) The cases of all those officers be reviewed who have completed 25 years of service since the last review took place in 1980.
(b) Any other case may also be referred to the same Review Committee on case to case basis.
(c) Only one Committee will be able to handle this workload.
(d) Similar instructions may also be issued to all provinces."
On 1-4-1982 the President approved the above proposals. To convey these decisions the Establishment Secretary issued circular letter dated 18-4-1982, para. 5 of which reads: "Officers retired under these instructions, unless on grounds of reputation for corruption, will be entitled to LPR, as may be due and full pension as admissible on completion of 30 years service or on attaining the prescribed age of superannuation, whichever is earlier."
In the light of the above policy instructions, the cases of officers under the Ministry of Railways who had completed 25 years of qualifying service for pension, were placed before the relevant Review Committee. This Committee recommended retirement of the appellant and when this recommendation received the President's approval the decision was conveyed to the Railway Division by the Joint Secretary, Establishment Division, vide his letter dated 21-12-1983. The relevant extracts of the said letter are reproduced below: "2. The recommendations of the Review Committee were submitted to the President, who has approved that the following officers of the Ministry of Railways should retire with immediate affect, under Section 13 (ii) of the Civil Servants Act, 1973: Name and DesignationGrade Date of Birth Date of entry in Govt. Service (1)............ ............ ........ ..........
(2) Mr. Muti-ul-haq, Dy. Chief Engineer, (Bridges) Civil Engg.
Department19 7-2-1928 23-7-1956 .......... ............. ......... .............
(4) The retirement of Government servants under section 13 (ii) is in exercise of the right of the Government to retire a public servant in public interest and is not a penal measure within the meaning of the Government Servants (Efficiency and Discipline) Rules, 1973. All such retiring civil servants would be entitled to full pensionary benefits as admissible to them on completion of 30 years service or on attaining the prescribed age of superannuation, whichever is earlier."
It was in terms of the above letter that the appellant was retired.
4. The appellant's case as stated by his counsel simply is that the Government stands committed to the allowing of full pensionary benefits vide Secretary, Establishment Division's circular letter dated 18-4-1982 under which the review was carried out and the letter dated 21-12-1983 of the Joint Secretary, Establishment through which the final orders of appellant's retirement were communicated to the Railway Division. It was further stated that the instructions issued by the Secretary Establishment had the approval of the President of Pakistan and thus, there was absolutely no scope for withholding of the claimed benefits.
5. The respondents do not deny the issuance of the two letters relied upon by the appellant and referred to in the paragraph above. Their stand is that the special benefit of full pension was sanctioned by the President for the officers retired in 1980 as a result of the first review only and this benefit does not extend to the cases of subsequent review of 1982. In this connection the representative of the Establishment Division drew our attention to the words "since this would constitute a one-time act of special consideration by the Government" used in para. 17 of Summary submitted to the President on 9-11-1970. The inference he sought to draw was that the proposal'as amended by the above stipulation having been approved by the President the special concession must remain confined to the cases of officers reviewed in 1980. As regards 1982 review cases, the plea put forward was that although the Summary submitted to the President by the Secretary Establishment did contain a similar provision yet it, was not specifically approved.
Therefore, it was contended that the commitment in the letter circulated by the Establishment Secretary on 18-4-1982 and the Joint Secretary's letter of 21-12-1983 notwithstanding the appellant was not entitled to the special benefit.
6. We have carefully perused the documents being relied upon by the parties and have considered their respective stands. We find that when the Establishment Secretary originally submitted proposals on the subject he had in mind a review exercise to be conducted every year. It appears, however, that the COS to the President was not very sure if the review was to be a yearly feature.
Therefore, while proposing that officers reported to be corrupt be not made entitled to the special beneift he mentioned the possibility of the review remaining a "one time act". When however, it was decided later to institutionalise the review exercise, the whole context changed. The proposals made and actions taken subsequently clearly show that it was no longer intended to keep the exercise a "one time act". So when a summary containing proposals in connection with second review was submitted to the President, the proposal that officers to be retired would be entitled to full pensionary benefits was again incorporated in para. 3 (g) of the 1981 Summary already reproduced above. The rationale behind this proposal is not difficult to find. It has explicitly been stated in para. 7 of the 1979 Summary in the following words:- "Strictly speaking this is not a punitive exercise; really the Government is exercising its right to keep only the best people in employment after they have put in 25 years of qualifying service. In view of this it is expedient that somewhat liberal terms should be given on retirementThese measures will provide the retiring officers/officials adequate opportunity and time to get adjusted after their retirement."
It was for these considerations, among others if any, that the President approved the proposal for full pension. At the time of second review in 1982, these considerations had not changed and that is why it was proposed to retire officers on the same lines as approved by the President in respect of the last review. In our view it would not be correct to say that the benefit of full pension was intended to be restricted to first review cases of 1980 only
6. We now come to the Respondents' plea that the proposal for the grant of full pension contained in. para. 3(g) of 1981 Summary not having specifically received the President's approval, the appellant's claim had no basis. To us this plea is without any force for the reasons that follow. First, the proposal for full pension was contained in para. 3(g) of the 1981 summary. As is evident from para. 8 of this summary, the Establishment Secretary did not solicit the President's approval to proposals at para. 3 but to paras. 4, 5 and 7 only The reason was that para. 3 contained proposals which were either purely of routine procedural nature or had already' received President's approval.
Full pension proposal was one that was approved previously and since the retirements were to be made on the same old lines, it was not considered appropriate to have the President's approval afresh. Secondly, the COS to the President who critically examined the proposals, did nowhere propose or, suggest to the President that the benefit of full pension as proposed by the Establishment Secretary be not approved. In his endorsement at para. 13 of the Summary to avoid repetition, he solicited President's approval only to proposals which had not been approved earlier.
Thirdly, as admitted before us, the instructions contained in Establishment Secretary's circular D.O. of 18-4-1982 were duly shown to the President. So, once he had seen these instructions and had not objected to their circulation, it cannot be said that these had not received his approval.
8. We consider it very relevant also to add that before submitting for the first time in 1979 to the President the proposals to make the review exercise an annual feature and to allow the officers to be retired on full pension the Establishment Secretary had received the concurrence of the Secretary, Finance. The idea to make the review a one-time act was mooted only at the later stage.
However, it did not receive the President's approval and was left for later consideration. In 1981, however, the Establishment Secretary's 1979 proposal to make the review a yearly exercise received the President's approval and a review was undertaken as a result of which the appellant was retired. It follows, therefore, that even the Finance Division had given its concurrence to the grant of full pension to the officers to be retired as a consequence of the annual review.
9. Above all, the Government stands fully committed to the grant of full pensionary benefits to the appellant in the two letters dated 18-4-1982 and 21-12-1983 issued from the Establishment Division.
The appellant had thereby come to have a vested right. We find no valid and legally justifiable reason to take away that right. We accept this appeal and direct that the amount of the appellant's pension and other benefits shall be computed as admissible on completion of 30 years of service or on attaining the prescribed age of superannuation, whichever is earlier, and he shall be paid accordingly from the date of retirement, arrears included.
10. No other ground was pressed.
11. The appeal succeeds to the extent indicated above.
12. No order as to costs.