Calcutta High Court: In the matter where 71 petitioners had filed a writ application challenging the fixation of the cut-off date of the Contributory Provident Fund Scheme on publication of the West Bengal Comprehensive Area Development Corporation Employee’s [Death cum Retirement] Benefit Regulations 2008, I.P. Mukerji, J struck down the part of regulations fixing a cut-off date and held that the petitioners will be entitled to the benefits of the impugned Regulations. However, they will have to return the entire amount of the employer’s share towards Contributory Provident Fund with interest
The Regulation which was merely an Administrative Instruction, was published on 10th December, 2008 and was made applicable with retrospective effect from 1st April, 2008 and and the benefit was extended to all whole time employees, permanent and temporary who were in the service of the Corporation on 1st April, 2008 and also to those who were appointed on and after that date. The employees, by these Regulations became entitled to pension after ten years of qualifying service.
The court observed that, “After termination of their service, the retired employees cannot sit as watchdogs on the periphery of the organization and expect that this benefit will also be extended to them in full measure”. However, the Court took note of the ratio of D.S. Nakara v. Union of India, (1983) 1 SCC 305 where it was observed that the court is entitled to read down an offending piece of legislation to make it compatible with the Constitution. Applying the above-mentioned ratio to the case at hand, the Court said that the impugned regulations treat the members of the same class differently as they make a discrimination between members of the same class i.e. retired employees. It confers benefits on those who retired between 1st April, 2008 and 10th December 2008 and leave out the rest. Hence, reading down the Regulations, the Court held that the benefits of these regulations have to be extended to the remaining petitioning retired employees also. [Rabindra Nath Munsi v. State of West Bengal, 2016 SCC OnLine Cal 2302 decided on 15.06.2016]
