In a significant ruling reinforcing judicial independence and service protections, the Himachal Pradesh High Court has quashed the state government’s decision to deduct pension from the salary of a retired judge appointed as chairman of the Himachal Pradesh Administrative Tribunal (HPAT).
The court’s decision came in response to a writ petition filed by Justice V.K. Sharma (Retd), who challenged the deductions made by the Himachal Pradesh government from his fixed monthly salary during his tenure as HPAT chairman. The deductions amounted to ₹4.8 lakh annually, representing the pension he was drawing as a retired High Court judge.
Justice Sharma, appointed as HPAT chairman on December 29, 2014, by the President of India under Section 4(2) of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985, assumed charge on February 27, 2015. His initial monthly salary was ₹80,000, later revised to ₹2.25 lakh. However, the Department of Personnel issued an order on April 13, 2015, reducing his salary by the amount of his judicial pension.
The High Court, citing multiple Supreme Court rulings, held that High Court judges cannot be treated as government employees, and their service conditions—when appointed to administrative tribunals—must be on par with constitutional judges. “The deduction of pension from the fixed salary of the HPAT chairman is wholly impermissible in law,” the court declared.
Agreeing with the petitioner’s argument that the HPAT chairmanship was a new constitutional appointment and not a case of “reemployment,” the court observed that the state government had erred in adjusting the pension against the chairman’s salary.
In its ruling, the court quashed all departmental orders issued between 2015 and 2019 that pegged the chairman’s salary as “salary minus pension” and directed the state government to restore the full fixed salary in line with the original appointment notification.
