Summary: Employees’ Old-Age Benefits Act, 1976—S. 22(1)(b), S. 22A, Ss. 2(e), 2(g), 2(q), 33, 34, 35 & Schedule, Cl. 1—Constitution of Pakistan, 1973—Art. 185(3)—Old-age pension—Qualifying period of fifteen years’ insurable employment—Rounding off of fractional service—Beneficial legislation—Administrative circulars vis-à-vis statute—Legitimate expectation and promissory estoppel—The controversy before the Federal Constitutional Court was whether insured employees who had completed more than fourteen years and six months of insurable employment, but less than fifteen full calendar years, were entitled to monthly old-age pension under S. 22(1)(b) of the Employees’ Old-Age Benefits Act, 1976, by applying the rule in Cl. 1 of the Schedule that a period of six months or more of insurable employment shall be treated as one full year. The Court held that the Act created two distinct benefit regimes: monthly old-age pension under S. 22(1) and lump-sum old-age grant under S. 22A; however, the statutory requirement of fifteen years’ insurable employment could not be read in isolation from the Schedule, which formed an integral part of the Act. The Schedule was not merely a computational appendage but a substantive legislative mechanism intended to account for fractional periods of insurable employment and to prevent denial of pension on account of marginal shortfalls. Therefore, where an insured person had completed fourteen years and six months or more of insurable employment, such period had, by legislative deeming fiction, to be treated as fifteen years, thereby satisfying the mandatory threshold under S. 22(1)(b). The Court emphasized that beneficial and social welfare legislation must receive a liberal, purposive and equitable construction to advance the remedy and suppress the mischief, and that a rigidly literal interpretation defeating pensionary entitlement because of negligible deficiency would be unjust and contrary to legislative intent. Administrative law—Executive circulars—Statute overriding administrative instructions—Legitimate expectation—Promissory estoppel—The petitioner Institution relied on Circular No. 1/2022 dated 17.02.2022 to contend that service of 14.5 years or more could not be rounded off for pension eligibility and that rounding off applied only after eligibility had independently been established. Rejecting that contention, the Court held that an executive circular could not override, curtail or dilute the parent statute or the Schedule appended thereto. The Court further noted that the Institution itself had earlier, through Circular dated 03.09.2019, acknowledged that shortfall of six months or less was to be treated as one full year for purposes of old-age pension, and that no material had been produced to show that the decisions forming the basis of that earlier circular had ever been set aside or displaced by a competent forum. In such circumstances, the subsequent executive attempt to undo an accrued and settled legal position was held ineffective. The Court also observed that where a public authority, by representation or consistent practice, creates rights or legitimate expectations in favour of beneficiaries under a social welfare scheme, such expectation cannot be arbitrarily defeated, and promissory estoppel restrains the authority from resiling from a consciously adopted position to the detriment of vested rights, absent overriding public interest sanctioned by law. Statutory interpretation—Schedule as integral part of enactment—Mandatory requirement and deeming fiction—The Court clarified that the High Court’s result was correct, though one aspect of its reasoning required refinement. The condition of fifteen years’ service in proviso (b) to S. 22(1) remained mandatory and had to be adhered to strictly; however, the Schedule did not negate or relax that requirement but supplied the legislatively sanctioned method of determining when that requirement stood fulfilled in cases involving fractional service. Thus, an employee who had not completed fifteen years in strict arithmetical terms could nevertheless be deemed, by force of the Schedule itself, to have completed fifteen years where the shortfall was six months or less. The respondents were therefore to be treated as having fulfilled all statutory conditions for monthly old-age pension. Case references—Colony Sarhad Textile Mills Ltd., Rawalpindi v. Government of Pakistan and others (PLD 1976 SC 227); Abdus Salam Khan v. Salim-Ud-Din Ahmad Siddiqui and two others (PLD 1979 Lah. 85); Federation of Pakistan through Secretary, Finance Division and another v. Abdul Rasheed Memon (2025 SCMR 532); State of U.P. and others v. Pawan Kumar Tiwari and others (AIR 2005 SC 658); Messrs MCB Bank Ltd. v. Commissioner Inland Revenue (2014 PTD 1874); Mars, Incorporated through Authorized Signatory and others v. the Registrar of Trade Marks and others (2019 CLD 27); Pakistan, through the Secretary, Ministry of Finance v. Muhammad Himayatullah Farukhi (PLD 1969 SC 407). Petitions dismissed—Leave refused—The Federal Constitutional Court held that the impugned judgments of the Lahore High Court were legally correct, suffered from no illegality, perversity, misreading or non-reading of evidence, and rightly directed grant of monthly old-age pension to the respondents. Consequently, leave was refused and the petitions were dismissed, with all pending applications also disposed of.