The Allahabad High Court has directed the Uttar Pradesh government to calculate and release pension, gratuity and other retirement benefits to a government employee who was terminated in 2000 but served for nearly three decades. According to reports from Mint, a division bench of Justice Saral Srivastava and Justice Siddharth Nandan issued the order on 14 September 2026 in Balkrishna Sharma v. State of U.P. and Others. The court has set a 30-day deadline for authorities to release these benefits, using its powers under Article 226 of the Constitution. The court emphasized that once Sharma retired, the question of the particular post lost much of its significance, making the issue his entitlement to retirement benefits arising from the service he had actually rendered. The court noted that Sharma was due to retire on 31 August 2026, having served almost 30 years without any complaint.
The case began when Sharma 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. As reported by Mint, Sharma received his appointment letter on 12 September 1997 and joined service, with the appointment letter describing the position as against a substantive vacancy, though temporary in nature. However, a report submitted by the Chief Accountant in July 2000 revealed that Sharma was actually 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 issued an order on 13 September 2000 terminating Sharma's services, citing that no substantive vacancy was available. According to Mint, Sharma challenged the termination before the High Court, but his writ petition was dismissed by a single judge in 2012. The division bench's 14 September 2026 judgment set aside the 2012 order and allowed Sharma's special appeal. The court noted that the State had advertised the vacancies, conducted the selection process and issued Sharma an appointment letter, but 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 court emphasized that Sharma had a legitimate expectation that his service would be treated as permanent, given that he had undergone the rigors of a regular selection process.
The court noted that Sharma had worked from his initial appointment on 12 September 1997 and was due to retire on 31 August 2026. As reported by Mint, the bench held that retirement benefits accrue by virtue of length of service and are not attached solely to the post. The court concluded that denying such benefits after accepting his services for almost 30 years would be inequitable. The court considered Sharma's position at the point of retirement rather than simply examining the original appointment in isolation, noting that he 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 ruling is based on the circumstances of Sharma's case, particularly the manner of his appointment and nearly three decades of service that followed, though it does not establish automatic entitlement for every employee whose appointment is later found to have a defect. The court cited the Supreme Court's Tej Prakash Pathak v. Rajasthan High Court (2025), which reiterated that recruiting bodies must follow a transparent and non-arbitrary procedure, and once a candidate is selected and appointed, a corrigendum cannot be issued to undermine the employee's legitimate expectations.
