ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has held that an employee can only become eligible for pension if he completes the tenure of pensionable service. This principle is also applicable to a deceased employee and, therefore, his family will only become entitled to pension if the deceased had put in pensionable service.

The observation came on an appeal moved by Syeda Sakina Riaz against an order of the Sindh High Court of March 13 last year, which had also rejected the plea of the petitioner.

The judgement authored by Justice Faisal Arab explained that to claim pension, a minimum qualifying service was the threshold that has to be first crossed which would then entitle the employee or his family after his death to claim pension.

The issue cropped up when Syeda Riaz’s husband died in a car accident on Jan 11, 2012. The deceased employee earlier was working as an assistant controller in BPS-18 in the examination department of the University of Karachi. By then he had served the university only for about five years so his tenure in office was well short of the minimum qualifying service which would have made his widow eligible to claim family pension under the University of Karachi Service Pension Statute, 1972.

To seek family pension, she sought recourse to the Prime Minister’s Family Assistance Package which inter alia granted a lump-sum payment as well as enhanced pension benefits to the families of the federal government employees who die while in service.

This package was made applicable to the families of employees as well by virtue of its adoption by the syndicate of the university on Jan 15, 2008. Although she was paid the lump-sum grant of Rs800,000 as provided in the package, the claim for grant of family pension was denied for the reason that her husband had not put in the minimum qualifying service of 10 years as envisaged under Section 26 of the University of Karachi Service Pension Statute.

In his judgement, Justice Arab held that 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 the right to claim pension was always attached to a specified term of office which an employee had to put in.

Employees do die before completing qualifying length of service, the judgement said, adding that it had been happening in the past and was likely to happen in future also. But unfortunately those who do not cross the threshold of minimum qualifying service, their service falls short of being regarded as pensionable.

The principle of completing minimum qualifying service is ingrained in every law that grants pension to the employees or after their death to their families, the verdict said, adding that this principle was based on quid pro quo which mandates that an employee must put in minimum qualifying years of service before he becomes entitled to claim pension benefits.

This principle is clearly depicted in the provisions of the University of Karachi Service Pension Statute, which provides four categories or classes of pension.

The family assistance package, in so far as it relates to pension, has only enhanced the quantum of family pension that is payable under the law of pension. It cannot be read to convert a non-pensionable service into a pensionable service, the judgment said, adding that in the present case admittedly the husband of the appellant had put in only about five years of service, well short of rendering qualifying length of service which only would have entitled his widow to claim any concession granted towards the quantum of pension.

Thus the university’s family assistance package was payable to the family of such deceased employee who had rendered minimum qualifying service in his lifetime under the provisions of pension statute, the judgment held.

Published in Dawn, June 3rd, 2018