The Supreme Court in a recent order pulled up the Tamil Nadu government and imposed a cost of Rs 1 lakh for “unnecessarily” challenging the pensionary benefits of a former sanitation worker. The government had repeatedly petitioned the Madras High Court and then the Supreme Court, appealing against court orders granting pension benefits to the worker. A Supreme Court bench of Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and Hrishikesh Roy were hearing a special leave petition filed by the Principal Secretary and other officials of the School Education Department of the Tamil Nadu government in the case.

The petition was related to the pensionary benefits of a man named Lakshmanan, who was working as a sweeper-sanitary worker in Kanniyakumari since 1992 for a consolidated pay of Rs 105 per month. His services were later regularised from 2002, and he retired in 2012. He had applied for pension by taking half of the service time before regularisation into account. However, the government refused to take that period into consideration and denied pension for that period, following which Lakshmanan filed a petition in the Madras High Court.

In 2017, a single judge bench of the high court had directed the state government to sanction his pensionary benefits by taking into account the service period before regularisation (from 1992 to 2002) along with his regular service from 2002 to 2012. This order was challenged by the Tamil Nadu government, and was eventually rejected by a division bench of the Madras High Court in 2020. The division bench directed to pay the pensionary benefits to Lakshmanan within eight weeks. The officials of the School Education Department then filed a review petition with the high court, which was also dismissed on March 2, 2022. 

However, the government went to the apex court and sought special leave to appeal against the last order passed by the Madras High Court. The Supreme Court noted that Lakshmanan had to go through “several stages of litigation including the writ petitions, intra-court appeal and even a review petition,” while dismissing the special leave petition. 

The court also added that the case is dismissed with imposition of exemplary cost of Rs 1 lakh for “unnecessarily” dragging the case in further litigation. The bench directed the School Education Department officials to deposit the amount in the welfare fund of the Supreme Court Employees Welfare Association within four weeks from the date of passing the order. 

The court also granted liberty to the state government officials to recover the amount from the officers responsible for prolonging the case and allowing “such frivolous petitions without sufficient cause and without any justification”.