IN PURSUIT OF UNITY (1)
THE THREE JUDGEMENTS - WHAT DO THEY REALLY MEAN FOR US?
(Their ‘Confluence’ so well enunciated by Sri C H Mahadevan and AFTER)
My appeal for unity of approach among the Petitioners in all the three High Courts, supported by every individual LIC pensioner, is literally the need of the hour. I am not tired of referring to the fact that the Hon’ble Supreme Court on 4/4/2014 has done us a great favour by ordering:
“Post the application along
with all the appeals in the 2nd week
of August, 2014”.
The valuable opportunity should be capitalized by our Petitioners, to cut
short the otherwise inescapable delay in the delivery of justice.
Notwithstanding the SC Order of 4/4/14, the three Civil Appeals may not be
heard for final disposal immediately, for any one of a number of possible
reasons. Though such a hearing cannot be ruled out theoretically, it is highly
unlikely that LIC/UoI will be ready to argue the Appeals immediately and in
that case, they will offer some excuse (like they need to obtain instructions
from the new Government etc.,), to put off the hearing. It is exactly here that the Petitioners (their Sr/Advocates) should be
fully prepared to take ‘control’ of the situation and convince the Bench that
LIC/UoI cannot be allowed to get away by taking the higher judiciary for granted
on some pretext or the other and that the Petitioners/Pensioners are entitled
to fair relief ‘here and now’. The Counsel shall be fully equipped with
irrefutable facts (like large number of ‘exits of Pensioners from the world’)
to plead with the Bench for what we deserve.
The Sr/Advocates’ task is not going to be easy. To succeed in such a situation,
there are at least three major factors that play a role – i) The inherent
strength in our case - legally speaking (we believe we have it and we should
make sure our Advocates believes so equally strongly). ii) Anticipate ALL
possible spanners that LIC/UoI may throw during the hearing and be prepared to
counter them effectively and iii) Overall ‘court craft’ displayed by the
Counsel.
It is not irrelevant to state here that while we should be ready and
fully prepared to argue and oppose the Civil Appeals for their dismissal/disposal,
it will be to our advantage if we are not called upon to do so now and
we should welcome LIC/UoI being ‘not ready’. If I may explain my point further,
final disposal of the CAs involves Supreme Court’s findings on important points
of law like scope of Sec 48, Government’s powers with reference to intervening
in the running the Corporation under various Regulations and whether or not the
proposed rectification of anomaly in DR for the earlier retirees in terms of
the Board Resolution, warrants any amendments of the statutory Regulations
etc.,
If the Bench is keen to dispose of the CAs and rejects LIC/UoI’s probable
pleas against the same, we have to be prepared, as we will have no choice. Only
if we are ready but the final hearing does not take place, we have the right to
press for directions to implement the three judgements that became binding. At
best LIC/UoI may still ask for time and manage to get a week or two
(adjournments for interim orders are always short). If, hopefully, the Bench is
willing to issue directions to implement the judgements, the inevitable next
situation will be LIC’s poser to the Bench that the three judgements under
discussion are not the same, if only they need to be implemented. LIC will
certainly highlight the real or imaginary differences in the three judgements
and then the Bench will have to turn to the Petitioners’ counsel and ask “What doth thou sayeth?”
(Continued)