Team Herald
PANJIM: The State Cabinet on Wednesday approved formation of a Pension Cell to verify and settle the pending pension claims of all those government employees, who were made to retire early at the age of 58 instead of 60.
Following High Court direction, the State government has decided to extend the revised pension benefit to all such employees along with the arrears, the Chief Minister Pramod Sawant told media persons post cabinet meeting.
He said that a separate Pension Cell will be formed to examine and verify the details of premature retired employees and settle their claims. “All these employees will be paid their dues,” Sawant said.
The government had in March issued an order stating that “the government is pleased to extend to the eligible pre-matured pensioners, who were made to retire at the age of 58 years, the benefits of pension at the revised rates from the date, the eligible pensioner attains the age of 60 years including arrears of pension”.
As per the then government decision in 2005, several of its employees were made to retire early at the age of 58 instead of 60. The order was reverted in 2007, however, the employees who retired prematurely were not granted compensation for the two years of lost service despite their repeated protests and petitions, which forced them to move to High Court for justice.
The High Court by a judgment dated September 5, 2022, observed that the employees were all appointed before May 30, 1987 — when the Goa, Daman and Diu Reorganisation Act, 1987, was enforced — and that their service conditions entitled them to continue working until they attained the age of 60 years.
“… there was no justification in retiring such employees upon their reaching the age of 58 years, in the absence of compliance with the provisions of Section 60(6) of the Reorganisation Act,” the Court had said.
