Madurai: Observing that resignation from a service or post entails forfeiture of past service, as per Rule 23(i) of the Tamil Nadu Pension Rules, 1978, the Madras high court has set aside the order of a single judge who had allowed a petition seeking to disperse the terminal benefits of a retired government teacher by taking into account his past service in the postal department.
V Thangaraj was appointed as a postal assistant in 1983 and subsequently promoted as sub-post master. He resigned from the postal department in 1997 and joined as secondary grade teacher during the same year. He retired from service on superannuation in 2014.
He had submitted representations to the authorities to consider his past service in the postal department along with the service rendered by him as a teacher and consequently, compute the pensionary benefits. Since his request was rejected, he filed a petition before the HC Madurai bench.
A division bench of justices T S Sivagnanam and S Ananthi observed that Thangaraj had resigned from the postal department and the order accepting the resignation clearly indicates that he is not entitled for any terminal benefits. The judges observed that Thangaraj cannot bring his case under Rule 26(9) of Tamil Nadu Pension Rules, which deals with what is commonly known in service jurisprudence as ‘technical resignation’. This resignation is acceptable in cases where the government servants apply for post in the same or other departments through proper channels and on selection, they are asked to resign the previous post for administrative reasons.
The judges observed that in the case on hand, the postal department has not treated the resignation as a ‘technical formality’, but treated it as a normal resignation making it clear that Thangaraj is not entitled for any benefits.
The judges said that the case would clearly fall within the ambit of Rule 23(i) of Tamil Nadu Pension Rules which states that resignation from a service or post entails forfeiture of past service. Hence, the judges allowed the appeal preferred by the state government and set aside the order of the single judge.
