Sindh High Court Rules Temporary and Daily Wages Service Count Toward Pension

Karachi: In a significant ruling, the Sindh High Court has declared that service rendered on a daily wages and temporary basis must be counted toward pension benefits for retired employees of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).
A two-member bench headed by Justice Adnan-ul-Karim Memon announced the verdict, setting aside the CAA’s office orders that had excluded such service from pension calculations. The court also directed authorities to pay all outstanding dues to the petitioners within two months.
According to the petitioners’ counsel, the employees had initially joined the CAA on daily wages between 1998 and 2001 and were later regularized in 2009. However, after retirement, their earlier service period was not included in pension calculations despite clear precedents from higher courts mandating its inclusion.
The CAA’s counsel argued that the petitioners were initially third-party contract employees and that such service could not be counted for pension. It was also contended that the employees had accepted terms at the time of regularization that excluded prior service from pension benefits.
Rejecting these arguments, the court observed that pension is a fundamental right of employees after retirement. It ruled that under CAA rules, if temporary service is followed by continuous regular employment without interruption, it must be included for pension purposes.
The court further held that administrative conditions cannot override employees’ legal rights and termed the exclusion of prior service as unlawful. It ordered a fresh calculation of pension benefits based on the employees’ complete service records and instructed that all dues be cleared within two months.