Employee was terminated in 2000 but served for nearly 30 years; Allahabad HC orders pension & other retirement benefits

A government employee’s appointment was questioned three years after he joined service, with the authorities subsequently terminating his services on the ground that the post against which he had been appointed was not available. Nearly three decades later, the same employee reached retirement, prompting the Allahabad High Court to examine what he was entitled to after years of service.

In its 14 September 2026 judgment in Balkrishna Sharma v. State of U.P. and Others, a division bench of Justice Saral Srivastava and Justice Siddharth Nandan directed the Uttar Pradesh authorities to calculate and release Sharma’s pension, gratuity and other retirement benefits within 30 days.

How the appointment dispute began

Sharma had applied for the post of Junior Clerk after the state advertised two general-category vacancies on 11 July 1997. He cleared the written examination and interview and was placed second in the select list issued on 31 July 1997.

He received his appointment letter on 12 September 1997 and joined service. The judgment records that the appointment letter described the appointment as against a substantive vacancy, though temporary in nature.

A report submitted by the Chief Accountant in July 2000 said Sharma had actually been appointed against a leave vacancy created because another employee, Smt. Pratima Saxena, was on leave. According to the State, there was no substantive vacancy available for Sharma because one of the two advertised posts had subsequently been filled through a compassionate appointment and the other had gone to the candidate ranked first in the selection process.

The authorities therefore issued an order on 13 September 2000 terminating Sharma’s services. Sharma challenged the termination before the High Court. His writ petition was dismissed by a single judge in 2012, leading to the special appeal decided by the division bench in September 2026.

Why the High Court questioned the State’s position

The division bench noted that the State had advertised the vacancies, conducted the selection process and issued Sharma an appointment letter. It had not issued any corrigendum to the original advertisement before completing the recruitment process.

The court said the State could not, after allowing the recruitment process to reach its logical conclusion, shift the consequences of its own decision onto the employee.

The court also referred to the Supreme Court’s observations in Jaggo v. Union of India concerning employees who remain in long-term service despite being treated as temporary workers. The Allahabad High Court said there was a similarity where termination was based on the subsequent claim that the post itself did not exist, because such a practice could leave employees in prolonged uncertainty despite the duration of their service.

Importantly, the judgment records that Sharma had worked from his initial appointment on 12 September 1997 and was due to retire on 31 August 2026. The court therefore considered his position at the point of retirement rather than simply examining the original appointment in isolation.

Court focuses on nearly 30 years of service

The court said Sharma had gone through the prescribed selection process believing that he was being appointed against a sanctioned post. After receiving an appointment letter and rendering nearly 30 years of service, he could not, in the court’s view, be left in uncertainty because of a defect in the State’s own decision.

The bench also noted that, once Sharma retired, the question of the particular post lost much of its significance. The issue before the court was therefore his entitlement to retirement benefits arising from the service he had actually rendered.

The court held that retirement benefits accrue by virtue of the length of service and are not attached solely to the post. It concluded that denying such benefits after accepting his services for almost 30 years would be inequitable.

Using its powers under Article 226 of the Constitution, the court directed the authorities to calculate Sharma’s retirement benefits, including pension and gratuity, as ordinarily admissible to a government employee and release them within 30 days of receiving a certified copy of the order. It also set aside the 2012 order of the single judge and allowed Sharma’s special appeal.

The ruling is based on the circumstances of Sharma’s case, particularly the manner in which his appointment was made and the nearly three decades of service that followed. It does not mean that every employee whose appointment is later found to have a defect would automatically become entitled to pension or gratuity.