The Supreme Court declined to apply the Tarsem Singh precedent, which had limited pension arrear claims to three years from the date of the High Court order. The Court distinguished the case on facts, holding that where the State's wrongful denial of pension was established, restricting arrears would reward governmental illegality. The ruling reinforces that Article 21 and the right to livelihood cannot be curtailed by an administrative limitation borrowed from a factually different precedent.

The Tarsem Singh ruling (2006) had held that pension arrears, when ordered by a court, should generally be calculated from three years before the High Court's order — essentially importing a quasi-limitation period into service law. The rationale was to balance fiscal burden on the State against the employee's entitlement.

The recent Supreme Court ruling carves out an important exception: where the State itself is the wrongdoer — having wrongfully denied pension — allowing it to benefit from a self-imposed delay by limiting arrears would be constitutionally impermissible. This invokes the doctrine of 'constitutional tort' and the principle that the State cannot profit from its own wrong (nemo ex suo delicto meliorem suam conditionem facere potest).

The case connects directly to Article 21 (right to life including livelihood), Article 300A (right to property — pension being a vested property right post-Deokinandan Prasad v. State of Bihar), and the broader doctrine that pension is not a bounty but a deferred wage — a right, not a privilege.

The distinction the Court draws is critical for CLAT PG: precedent applies only when the factual matrix is substantially similar. A ruling limiting arrears in a case of administrative delay cannot be extended to a case of deliberate wrongful denial. This is the principle of 'distinguishing a precedent' — a tested concept in constitutional law and jurisprudence papers.