Retired Roadways workers lose pension battle after accepting PF
Supreme Court says employees who never held pensionable posts can't claim pension decades later, after already taking provident fund benefits.
16
years.
Supreme Court says employees who never held pensionable posts can't claim pension decades later, after already taking provident fund benefits.
They worked for UP Roadways for decades, retired, and took their provident fund money. Then they asked for a pension too. The Supreme Court just shut that door.
For years, the men had driven buses through the dust of Uttar Pradesh's highways, managed depots thick with the smell of diesel and old grease, and kept the state's public transport running on worn-out tyres and stubborn hope. When they retired, they walked away with their Employees' Provident Fund (EPF) — a lump sum they had contributed to during their working lives, the paper of the withdrawal forms still crisp in their hands. Decades later, they came back to court asking for something else: a monthly pension, the kind government employees get. The question was simple, and devastating: could you take the money and then demand the benefit you never signed up for?
Consider one of them — a man who had joined UP Roadways in the early 1960s, when the department was still new and the buses were second-hand. He had driven routes that stretched from the plains to the hills, his hands steady on the wheel through monsoon rains and summer heat. He had never been told he was on a pension track. His appointment letter, folded and worn, said "temporary." When he retired in the late 1990s, he filled out the EPF withdrawal form at a small desk in the depot office, the ink of his signature still wet. He took the money — a single payment that felt like a windfall then — and went home. It was only years later, when he saw other government employees collecting monthly pensions, that he began to wonder: had he been short-changed? He joined the association of retired workers, and together they filed a petition. The courtroom fell silent as the order was read — the pension claim, after decades of silence, was too late.
When a temporary department became a trap
UP Roadways was born in 1947 as a temporary government department — a stopgap arrangement for a newly independent state that needed to move people. Its employees were hired on the same basis: not as permanent civil servants but as hands needed to run buses, their appointment letters stamped with the word "temporary." In 1960, the state government drew a clear line. It issued an order (GO dated 28.10.1960) that classified only three categories of permanent employees as eligible for pension. Everyone else — including all temporary staff and the remaining permanent non-gazetted employees — would be covered by the Provident Fund scheme. That was the deal, written in government ink and filed away in dusty records. The retired workers later argued that this order was never properly communicated to them, that they had worked in ignorance of its terms. But the court would not accept that — the order was a public document, accessible to anyone who cared to look.
Then came 1972. The UP State Road Transport Corporation (UPSRTC) was created under the Road Transport Corporation Act, 1950 (the law that allows states to set up public transport corporations). Roadways employees were sent on deputation to the new Corporation and later absorbed into it. The transition was not smooth — some employees resisted the move, fearing their service conditions would worsen. The government issued an assurance on 05.07.1972 that Corporation employees' service conditions would not be inferior to what they had under Roadways. That assurance would later become a central plank of the pension claim. The Corporation framed its own service regulations in 1981. Regulation 39 made it clear: only those employees who had held pensionable government posts before joining the Corporation could claim pension. Everyone else stayed on Provident Fund. The pension application forms that some employees later filled out would sit in government files, unanswered for years.
The pension promise that wasn't
The retired employees — now organised as the UP Roadways Retired Officials and Officers Association — argued that they were entitled to pension. Their case rested on two things. First, an amendment to Article 350 of the UP Civil Service Regulations (the rulebook for government employees' pension) that replaced the word 'Post' with 'Establishment'. Second, the 1972 assurance that Corporation employees' service conditions would not be inferior to what they had under Roadways.
The state and the Corporation pushed back. They pointed to Note 3 of Article 350 — a provision that had never been amended, even as the rest of the article changed. That note specifically excluded non-gazetted posts in Government Technical and Industrial Institutions from pension eligibility. Roadways, they argued, was exactly that: a technical and industrial institution. The 1960 order had already settled the matter — only three categories of permanent employees got pension. The rest were Provident Fund employees. Period. The Corporation's lawyers also argued that the 1972 assurance was never intended to create new pension rights — it was only meant to protect the existing benefits of those who already had them.
Why the High Court said no
The retired employees first went to the Allahabad High Court. A single judge dismissed their writ petition in July 2014. The courtroom was quiet as the order was read — the pension claim, after decades of silence, was too late. They appealed to a division bench, which also dismissed their case in November 2016. The High Court held that the employees had never held pensionable posts under the applicable government orders. They had accepted their EPF benefits without protest. You cannot take the money and then claim the pension decades later — that is approbation and reprobation (accepting the benefit of one thing and then rejecting its consequences). The division bench's judgment was brief and firm, leaving the retired workers with little hope.
But the Corporation had its own grievances. Some High Court judgments had gone the other way — in cases like UPSRTC v. Mirza Athar Beg (2011) and UPSRTC v. Shri Narain Pandey (2009) — granting pension to certain employees. The Corporation appealed those too. By 2020, the entire mess reached the Supreme Court — a batch of appeals from both sides, the files stacked high on the judges' desks. The retired workers' lawyers argued that the High Court had erred in not considering the 1977 amendment to Article 350, which they said broadened pension eligibility. The Corporation countered that the amendment had no effect on Note 3, which remained unchanged.
The Supreme Court's arithmetic
Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice Hrishikesh Roy took up the case on 26 July 2024. Their reasoning was cold and precise. First, they looked at Note 3 of Article 350. The 1977 amendment had changed 'Post' to 'Establishment', but Note 3 remained untouched. That note still excluded non-gazetted posts in technical and industrial institutions. Roadways was a technical and industrial institution. The employees were non-gazetted. They were out.
Second, the 1960 order. The court read it carefully. Paragraph 1 listed three categories of permanent employees who could get pension. Everyone else — including permanent non-gazetted employees and all temporary staff — was directed to the Provident Fund scheme. The appellants did not fall within those three categories. They were never pensionable. The court noted that the order had been consistently applied for decades, and no one had challenged it until now.
Third, the 1972 assurance about service conditions. The court held that this applied only to State Government employees who already held pensionable posts and were absorbed into the Corporation. For employees who were never entitled to pension in the first place, being denied pension was not "inferior service conditions" — it was simply the same condition they had always been under. The assurance, the court said, could not create a right where none existed.
The doctrine that ended the fight
The court then applied the principle of approbation and reprobation — a legal rule that prevents a person from accepting the benefit of something and then rejecting its burden. "Employees who accepted post-retiral benefits under the EPF Scheme without protest cannot subsequently claim pension decades after retirement," the court held. "The doctrine of approbation and reprobation, coupled with delay and laches, bars such belated claims." The employees had worked for decades knowing they were on Provident Fund. They had retired and taken their EPF money without a whisper of protest. To come back years or decades later and demand a pension was, the court said, barred by this principle. It was also barred by delay and laches (waiting too long to assert a right, causing prejudice to the other side).
The court cited its own precedents — Union of India v. M.K. Sarkar (2010) and National Council of Educational Research and Training v. Shyam Babu Maheshwari (2011) — both of which held that belated claims for pension after accepting other benefits cannot succeed. It also referred to Krishna Kumar v. Union of India (1990), Union of India v. Kailas (1998), and V.K. Ramamurthy v. Union of India (1996), building a wall of precedent that the retired employees could not breach. The judges' voices were steady as they read the judgment, the words falling like a final verdict on a long-fought battle.
What the order actually did
The Supreme Court dismissed the retired employees' appeal (Civil Appeal No. 894 of 2020). It allowed the Corporation's appeals (Civil Appeals No. 895, 896, 897, 898 of 2020 and a converted SLP appeal), setting aside the High Court orders that had granted pension to some employees. It also dismissed appeals from another group called the RKSP (Civil Appeals No. 899-901 of 2020). The message was uniform: no pension for those who never held pensionable posts.
The court also clarified one more thing. Some Roadways employees had been promoted to pensionable posts in the Corporation between 1972 and 1981. Those employees, the court said, were entitled to pension under a 1984 government order. But employees promoted after the absorption date of 28 July 1982 were not — they had never been on a pensionable track. The court's arithmetic was precise: the window for pension eligibility had closed, and these employees had arrived too late.
THE PLAY: If you accepted Provident Fund benefits at retirement without protest, you cannot claim pension decades later — the Supreme Court will treat it as approbation and reprobation.
The court ended where it began: with a department that was never meant to be permanent, and employees who took what they were given, then asked for more. The smell of diesel and old paper lingered in the courtroom long after the judgment was read. For the retired workers who had gathered outside, the news was a quiet blow — the pension they had hoped for would not come. They walked away, some with the same tired steps they had used to board buses decades ago, the judgment folded in their hands like a final withdrawal form.