Employees taking VRS cannot be treated on a similar footing as those retiring in normal course: hence no violation of Article 14 and no violation of the principle of equal pay for equal work;SC

The Supreme Court held that, under normal circumstances when an employee retires from service, his relationship with the employer comes to an end. Further, in the instant case the employees who retired under voluntary retirement scheme form a separate class as compared to those who retired in normal course. The learned counsel appearing for the employees, who had retired under the Scheme, had vehemently submitted that pension is a right of an employee for the services rendered in the past and as the pension depends upon the last salary paid or payable to the employee, the employee, who had opted for the Scheme and retired, must be given benefit of the revised pay and his pension must also be enhanced accordingly. It had been submitted that the employees had accepted the offer given by the Employers with regard to their retirement as a special case under the scheme and as a result of retirement under the Scheme, the employees were substantially benefitted because they were given ex gratia payment to which they were otherwise not entitled to and they were also given additional amount of pension because a notional period of five years had been added to the number of years served by them. Upon hearing the learned counsels and upon going through the judgments rendered by different High Courts and the relevant provisions pertaining to the Scheme and the Notification dated 21st December, 2005, the Supreme Court held that, we are of the view that the employees who had taken benefit under the Scheme and had already retired would not be entitled to additional pension due to retrospective increase in pay in pursuance of Notification dated 21st December, 2005.