Deeming fiction under service rules brought employees into the pension scheme, and a later CPF option could not reverse it.

A government memorandum created a deeming fiction that statutory body employees in service on the relevant date would move to the pension scheme unless they opted to remain under the contributory provident fund within the stipulated time. Because no timely option was exercised, the employees were automatically brought under the pension regime and Regulation 16 of the service rules applied to them. A later attempt to choose the provident fund scheme could not displace that legal fiction, and the claim that pension was a new scheme was rejected as based on a mistaken premise. The pension scheme governed the employees, and the appeal failed.

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Issues: Whether employees of the statutory autonomous body were to be treated as having switched over to the pension scheme by operation of the government memorandum and service regulations, and whether a later purported option to remain under the contributory provident fund scheme could defeat that deeming effect.

Analysis: The government memorandum created a legal fiction that all CPF beneficiaries in service on the relevant date would be deemed to have come over to the pension scheme unless they expressly opted to continue under CPF within the stipulated time. The employees did not exercise such option within time. Once the deeming provision operated, they became members of the pension scheme, and Regulation 16 of the service regulations applied to them automatically. A later purported CPF option could not undo the statutory fiction. The objection that the pension scheme was a new scheme was rejected as proceeding on a wrong premise, because the memorandum and the accepted pay commission recommendations had already brought the employees within the pension regime.

Conclusion: The employees were held to be governed by the pension scheme, and the order of the Division Bench modifying the writ court's relief was set aside. The appeal failed.

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