Summary
The Supreme Court upheld the 1 August 2002 State-pension eligibility cutoff in the special relaxation of the Central freedom-fighter pension scheme for participants in Phase II of the Goa Liberation Movement. The claimant’s later State pension did not satisfy that condition or retrospectively undo rejection of his earlier application. State and Central eligibility differed, and the limited relaxation was not an open-ended entitlement for every State pensioner.
Issues
- Whether the cutoff for the special Central-pension relaxation was arbitrary.
- Whether State pension sanctioned from December 2007 entitled the claimant to the relaxed benefit because he had applied earlier.
Held
- The special relaxation deliberately covered participants already sanctioned State pension by 1 August 2002. The contemporaneous deliberations established a rationale for a closed eligible category; the restriction had intelligible differentia and a nexus with the scheme’s object. (¶¶ 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26)
- Eligibility for a State freedom-fighter pension did not itself establish eligibility for the Central scheme, which used different criteria. Relaxing Central criteria for a defined category did not entitle persons outside that category to the same concession. (¶¶ 11, 12, 13, 25, 26)
- The later State sanction followed reopening of the State scheme and operated from 1 December 2007. It neither found the previous rejection wrongful nor related the sanction back to the earlier application or rejection date. (¶¶ 27, 28)
- The precedent treating an application deadline as administrative convenience was distinguishable: the present cutoff defined eligibility for a substantive relaxation rather than merely prescribing when an otherwise eligible claimant must apply. (¶¶ 29, 30)
Result
Union’s appeal allowed and claimant’s writ petition dismissed. The special scheme and rejection communications of 16 November 2009 and 13 November 2014 upheld.