Justice Deshpande was a judge at the Bombay City Civil and Sessions Court for over sixteen years. He was then appointed an Additional Judge of the Bombay High Court in 2008 for a tenure of two years. His tenure was extended for another one year through a notification.
In April 2011, while he was occupying the post of Additional Judge, Justice Deshpande was appointed Presiding Officer of the Mumbai University and College Tribunal for three years.
During his tenure as the Presiding Officer, he attained the age of sixty, but continued in the position in line with the notification of his appointment. This gave rise to the dispute regarding the computation of his pension.
The Administrative Judges Committee that had considered the matter concluded that Justice Deshpande had attained superannuation as a District Judge.
Subsequently, a letter was sent by the respondent to the Department of Justice of the Union Law Ministry to look into this issue. The matter was then referred to the Bombay High Court.
A two-member committee set up by the Bombay High Court then arrived at the conclusion that the provisions of pension for District Judges would be applicable to the respondent.
Aggrieved by this decision by the High Court’s administrative side, Justice Deshpande filed a petition on the judicial side, which granted him relief.
This prompted the administrative side of the High Court to file the present appeal before the top court.
At the last hearing of the matter by the Supreme Court back in July 2018, Justice AK Sikri had issued notice to the State and central agencies.
The top court had said that the question of law here to be considered was whether the the former judge should be treated as a retired judge of the High Court or the District Court, and how his pension ought to be fixed.
Source: Barandbench
