The Lahore High Court has clarified that government employees may be entitled to have their continuous contract service included when calculating pension benefits if they are later regularised.
The ruling came in a case involving the widow of a former Punjab government employee. The employee had served the government on a contract basis from 2005 before his services were regularised in 2010. He passed away in 2016, after which his widow sought pension and other benefits.
The Punjab government opposed the claim, maintaining that only the period served after regularisation could be considered for pension purposes. According to the government’s position, the employee did not complete the required 10 years of qualifying regular service.
The court, however, rejected this interpretation and held that the employee’s five years of continuous contract service before regularisation should also be counted toward his pension entitlement.
The LHC maintained that the employee had remained in continuous government service before his regular appointment and that this period could not simply be excluded when determining his pension benefits.
With the decision, the court dismissed the Punjab government’s appeal and upheld the earlier judgment in favour of the deceased employee’s widow.
The ruling could have wider implications for government employees who begin their careers on contract and are subsequently regularised. It reinforces the principle that continuous service may be relevant when determining pension rights, rather than limiting calculations solely to the period after regularisation.
