S/L 31 22.06.2026 Court No.18 SD IN THE HIGH COURT AT CALCUTTA CONSTITUTIONAL WRIT JURISDICTION WPA 10125 of 2016 Amina Khatun & Ors. Vs. The State of West Bengal & Ors. Sk. Jakir Hossain … for the Petitioner Nos.1 & 3. Mrs. Aparna Banerjee, Ld. AGP Mr. Suman Chattopadhyay … for the State. Md. Salahuddin Md. Ahsanuzzaman Md. Raziuddin … for the Respondent Nos.2-5. 1. Affidavit of service filed in Court today be kept with the records. 2. The petitioners were appointed on temporary basis in different Muslim hostels in West Bengal under the Board of Auqaf on diverse dates, all prior to April 1, 2007. Their service was absorbed/regularized by the Board of Auqaf in the year 2010 w.e.f. April 1, 2009. The petitioners were entitled to receive pay under ROPA 2009 with other admissible allowances. 3. The grievance of the petitioners is that they are not being paid pension on attaining their normal age of superannuation. 4. The petitioners rely on the Board of Auqaf, West Bengal Employees (Death-cum-Retirement Benefit) Regulations, 2008 for grant of pension in their favour. 5. Learned advocate representing the Board of Auqaf relies on the affidavit-in-opposition filed by the Chief Executive Officer of the Board of Auqaf. The 2 prayer of the petitioners for grant of pension has been opposed. 6. It has been submitted that there is shortfall in the qualifying pensionable service period of the petitioners for which they will not be entitled to receive pension. 7. DCRB Regulations, 2008 cannot be made applicable in favour of the petitioners as they are employees of the hostels and not employees of the Board. Draft regulation for the Muslim hostel employees was sent to the Minority Affairs Department for approval but the same has not been approved till date. 8. Regulations, 2008 have been placed before this Court. It appears therefrom that the same came into effect from the date of its publication. The said Regulation was published in the Kolkata Gazette Extraordinary on March 14, 2008. 9. The said Regulation applies to all whole time employees, both permanent and temporary, who were in service of the Board of Auqaf. 10. The Board of Auqaf, West Bengal has been defined to be a body corporate and it is the duty of the Board to exercise its power to ensure that the Auqaf under its superintendence are properly maintained, controlled and administered. For calculation of pension and family pension, the pay drawn by an 3 employee attached to a post is to be taken into consideration. 11. The qualifying service period for pension clearly specifies that continuous, temporary or officiating, service of a whole time employee shall count as qualifying service provided it is followed, without interruption by confirmation in the same or another post in the Board. 12. On a perusal of the subject Regulations, it appears that the same is applicable only to the employees of the Board who were in continuous, temporary or officiating service. 13. In the instant case, admittedly, the petitioners were serving in the hostels and they were not the employees of the Board. The Board of Auqaf regularized the service of the petitioners in the hostels w.e.f. April 1, 2009. They were never regularized as employees of the Board. 14. The pay of the petitioners may have been as per ROPA but they were not the employees of the Board. The Chief Executive Officer, in the affidavit-in- opposition, has disclosed that the hostel employees’ Regulation was forwarded to the Department for approval but the same has not been approved. 15. Upon considering the aforesaid documents and the submission made on behalf of the parties, it appears that the petitioners being the employees of 4 hostels will not get the benefit under the subject DCRB Regulations, 2008. 16. In view of the above, no relief can be granted to the petitioners in the instant case. The writ petition fails and is hereby dismissed. 17. Parties to act on the basis of the server copy of this order duly downloaded from the official website of this Court. (Amrita Sinha, J.)