Revered, Respected & Distinguished LIC Board Member,
We, the aged
pensioners, wish to place before your goodself, the problems faced by
pensioners & a brief history of the legal cases in Courts & Supreme
Court, with useful background material, to enable you to appreciate the genuine
issues confronting pensioners fraternity & to seek your blessings &
intervention as an eminent LIC Board Member to crystallize correct, impartial
& neutral decision.
1. MOU dt
14/1/1994 between LIC & Unions clearly & explicitly says
‘’SAME DR FOR PENSIONER , AS SAME DA FOR
EMPLOYEES’ It is on record. There cannot & should not exist
any restrictive process or provisions, nullifying better benefits,allowed for
others but denied to the pensioners.
2.(a)Here is the important & crucial line
in the Note prepared by EDP paving the way for the Board Resolution
dt 24/11/2001, as a result of a query raised by Dr Ram Khanna,then
independent LIC Board Member, after our 110 minutes meeting with then LIC
Chairman Sri G.N.Bajpai, in August 2011, “it may be mentioned
that such a provision to upgrade the pension due to periodic
revision in case of Central Govt employees is incorporated in the Central
Civil Services (Pension) Rules, on the basis of which LIC of India
(Employees ) Pension Rules 1995 have been drafted.
(b) Further, it is to be borne in mind
that LIC itself, in its SECRET letter dt 31/12/2001 to then
Joint Secretary, MOF, Sri Ajit Sharan, secured under
RTI & 11/8/2003, to MOF/UOI state clearly “there is an
urgent need to rationalize the DR structure available to different groups
of pensioners in order to reduce the
administrative inconvenience & also to see that
different generations of pensioners are protected by merging
the pension to a suitable index. ” This clinches the issue of
successive pension revisions with every wage revision. It stretches & goes
beyond Board Resolution to capture full & continuous pension revision at
CPI 600, 1148, 1740, 2328,2994. It is also added “ Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules,
on which LIC (Employees) Pension rules has been broadly designed,
contains such an upgradation formula corresponding to revisions
effected for Central Govt Employees”
3. Nakara SC 5-Judge Constitution Bench presided by Hon
CJ Y.V.Chandrachud in D.S.Nakara vs UOI ,regarded as the MagnaCarta for
Pensioners,cleared the air & categorically asserted ‘by introducing
an arbitrary eligibility criteria & thereby dividing a homogeneous class, violates
Article 14 of & is unconstitutional’ “ Pension is neither a
bounty nor a matter of grace depending on the sweet will of the employer. It is
not an exgratia payment, but it is a deferred wage for the past services
rendered by him - Pension is their statutory, inalienable & legally
enforceable right.It has been earned by the sweat of their brow. As such it should
be fixed, revised, modified & changed in ways, not entirely dissimilar
to the salaries granted to serving employees.”
4. Basic Pension unchanged & static
right from 1/11/ 1993, a long long 20 yrs !! is unthinkable, it will be a
travesty of justice,building up, perplexing anamolies, glaring discrepancies
& unbridgeable paradoxes, 8/9 cadres below,a Peon getting more pension than
pre-8/1997 ED & so,has to be addressed & redressed,by LIC. It is
an anachronism that LIC pensioners still continue in pre-1995 IV Pay Commission
mode. But in spite of our follow up for several years, with LIC &
MOF/UOI, as nothing came out in the form of a solution,we had to resort to
Courts alone & so came the Umbrella judgement of
Rajasthan, Jaipur HC by SJ Hon Bhandari dt 12/1/2010 conferring twin benefits
of pension revision with every wage revision to all pensioners &
Full DR to pre-8/1997 pensioners, as being paid for Employees &
eliminate discrimination as post 8/97 pensioners were paid Full DR.
5. National Litigation Policy now more than 4 yr
old , Govt shd not be a compulsive litigant & especially in Sr
Citizens,pension/retirement benefits ,no Appeals be made as a
conscientitious policy to be made a reality.Yet, LIC & Govt go in for
Appeal, Review & SLP.
6. Hon Judge(Retd) VR Krishna Iyer, Beeshma Pitha of
legal jurisprudence, 97-year youngagenarian, sent a letter dt 17 July 2010 to
then FM Sri Pranab Mukherjee, after I took up the matter with him & in his
inimitable language thundered, after affirming ‘the pathetic condition of a
class of people arbitrarily alienated from the beneficial stream of pensioners,
it ‘is a clear, distinct, blatant violation of Articles 14,16 & 21 of
Constitution & added, ’LIC pensioners are one integral group & cannot
be divided into different classes. Date is an irrelevant factor when alteration
in pension is made.’ ’What is discriminatory is arbitrary & what is arbitrary
is unconstitutional.’ SC & HIGH COURTS never sacrifice the hallowed
& time-tested principle of equality & equity & detest any trace
of discrimination.
(To be continued)