Citation: Punjab School Education Board and Another v. Satnam Singh and Others, Civil Appeal No. 6865 of 2022, reported as 2026 INSC 965, Bench comprising Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice Shree Chandrashekhar on September 8, 2026
Supreme Court ruled in favor of several employees who started working for the Punjab School Education Board as far back as the 1990s on a temporary or daily-wage basis. Even though they were officially regularized later (around 2004), the Court agreed that their long years of early service should count toward their retirement pension. Because their service started before the government switched to a new pension system on January 1, 2004, the Court decided they are entitled to get the old, more beneficial pension.
Back in the 1990s, the Punjab School Education Board hired several workers—such as clerks and peons—on temporary, contract, or daily-wage bases to handle immediate workload needs. Over the next several years, these workers faced a rocky legal and administrative road, dealing with temporary terminations, cancelled recruitment drives, court battles over job security, and shifting government policies regarding job regularization.
Eventually, in July 2004, the Board officially regularized their jobs based on a policy it adopted for workers who had already completed years of service. Once they became regular employees, a major dispute arose over their pensions: the Board wanted to put them under a new, stricter contributory pension scheme introduced in 2004, while the employees argued that their continuous service since the 1990s meant they should qualify for the older, better pension scheme.
The Supreme Court held that the employees’ long years of temporary service before 2004 must be counted as qualifying service for their retirement, meaning they entered service before the cutoff date and are entitled to choose the old pension scheme rather than the new contributory one.
