SC observes: person rendering qualifying service for 10 years eligible for pension

The Supreme Court on Saturday ruled that right to claim pension is a right connected with the tenure of service which under the applicable pension rules has to be served by an employee in order to make him eligible for pension. The apex court observed if a person renders qualifying service under pension rules for 10 years, he is eligible for pension and any further concession that may be granted towards pension from time to time.
A three-member bench headed by Justice Mushir Alam and comprising Justice Faisal Arab and Justice Muneeb Akhtar on 22nd May after hearing the arguments had reserved the judgment, which was announced on Saturday. The court ruled where a deceased employee has been put in pensionable service, only then his family becomes entitled to pension. The court said in order to claim pension, a minimum qualifying service is the threshold that has to be first crossed which would then entitle an employee or his family after his death to claim pension.
The right to claim pension cannot be equated with an insurance policy that becomes enforceable due to an event that occurs even before its maturity date as right to claim pension is always attached to a specified term of office which an employee has to put in, i.e, it is a benefit which is earned by an employee as a result of giving service to an employer for a specified number of years.
The judgment said those who do not cross the threshold of minimum qualifying service, their service falls short of being regarded as pensionable service. "It's very disappointing for the families of the employees who die while in service without completing minimum qualifying service."
Syeda Sakina Riaz had filed an appeal against the Sindh High Court judgment for getting the pension. The appellant's husband who was working as an assistant controller in BPS-18 in the examination department of the University of Karachi died in a fatal car accident on 11.01.2012. The deceased had served the university only for about five years at the time of accident.
The university had denied Sakina family of pension because her husband's tenure in office was well short of the minimum qualifying service (10 years) under the University of Karachi Service Pension Statute, 1972. To seek family pension, the appellant sought recourse to the Prime Minister's Family Assistance Package notification No 7/40/2005-E-2, dated 13.06.2006, which inter alia granted a lump sum payment. She was given Rs 800,000 from the grant, but denied her claim for grant of family pension that her husband had not put in the minimum qualifying service of ten years as envisaged under Section 26 of the University of Karachi Service Pension Statute, 1972.
Sakina then moved Sindh High Court for seeking directions to the university to grant her family pension. The high court dismissed her petition on the ground that the university's pension law was not statutory and that her deceased husband had not put in minimum qualifying service as envisaged in her civil appeal. Against the SHC judgment she had filed an appeal in the Supreme Court.