The courtroom at Ranchi had a familiar, slightly tense calm on Thursday when the Jharkhand High Court took up two writ petitions filed by the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS). At stake was not just an accounting issue, but the post-retirement security of two elderly former teachers. By the end of the hearing, the message from the Bench was unambiguous: pension benefits cannot be denied on technicalities when the law itself leans towards employee welfare.
Background
The petitions arose from a May 28, 2025 order of the Central Administrative Tribunal, which had directed KVS to convert the retirement benefits of two former employees from the Contributory Provident Fund (CPF) scheme to the General Provident Fund-cum-Pension Scheme.
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One respondent, a Yoga Teacher appointed in 1981, retired in 2019. The other joined KVS as a Primary Teacher in 1980, rose through the ranks to Vice Principal, and retired in 2014. Both had initially opted for CPF in the early years of service. However, crucially, after government and KVS memoranda issued in the late 1980s, neither of them exercised a fresh option to continue under CPF.
Their case was simple: under the rules, silence meant automatic migration to the pension scheme. KVS disagreed and knocked on the High Court’s doors.
Court’s Observations
The Division Bench, led by the Chief Justice, spent considerable time walking through the paper trail - government memoranda, KVS circulars, and binding Supreme Court precedents. The Bench noted that the facts were largely undisputed.
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A key document was the KVS memorandum dated September 1, 1988. “A plain reading shows,” the Bench observed, “that if no option to continue in the CPF scheme was exercised by the cut-off date, the employee shall be deemed to have switched over to the GPF-cum-Pension Scheme.”
KVS argued that its employees were part of an autonomous body and that CPF options, once exercised, were final. The judges were not persuaded. Referring to the Supreme Court’s ruling in University of Delhi v. Shashi Kiran, the Bench remarked that pension schemes are beneficial in nature and must be interpreted in favour of retirees.
“The very choice to select a scheme,” the court noted, “flows from a welfare-oriented policy, and denial of pensionary benefits on rigid interpretations would be discriminatory.”
The court also pointed out that a similar Jharkhand High Court judgment in Union of India v. Priyabrat Singh had already settled the issue, and that decision had attained finality after the Supreme Court dismissed the SLP.
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Decision
Agreeing entirely with the Tribunal’s reasoning, the High Court held that there was no legal flaw in directing the conversion from CPF to GPF-cum-Pension Scheme. Finding “no merit” in KVS’s challenge, the Bench dismissed both writ petitions at the threshold itself. All pending applications were also disposed of, bringing the long-drawn dispute to a close.
Case Title: Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan vs. Bhrigu Nandan Sharma & Another
Case No.: W.P.(S) No. 6520 of 2025 with W.P.(S) No. 6552 of 2025
Case Type: Service Matter – Pension / CPF to GPF-cum-Pension Conversion
Decision Date: 05 December 2025
