The recent judgment of the Supreme court dt 17th March 2015 reported by ‘The Tribune’ ordering that Pension cannot be less than 50% of pay at the minimum of the pay & grade pay is very significant at least for a small segment of our retired Class I Officers and retirees of other classes. (The copy of the text of the judgment is not available).
When an employee retires within a few months after the effective date of wage revision, the fixation of pension on the basis of average emoluments computed for the last 10 months of service may result in the gross basic pension being fixed at less than 50% of the basic pension at the minimum of the revised scale of pay. Also the Fixed Personal Allowance falls under the definition of ‘pay’ limited to the amount of last increment as per our Pension Rules. So such of those retirees as fall in the above category can legally claim a re-fixation of their Basic Pension as per the judgment of the Supreme Court at least 50% of the minimum of the revised scale plus 50 % of the permissible Fixed Personal Allowance on revision.
Secondly, there are a number of retired Class I Officers who are placed in the scale of the next higher cadre at the time of promotion rounds before their retirement. For some of them also the computation of average emoluments for the last 10 months at the time of retirement may result in a lower Basic Pension than 50% of revised Pay. So they will also be benefited by this judgment.
In other words, the recent SC judgment implies that the gross basic pension cannot be less than 50 % of the revised scale in which the retiree drew his last salary.
It is not clear in the absence of the text of the judgment, whether it will also apply to the retirees who have drawn an increment within the last 10 months before retirement.
Of course, if the three Civil Appeals are decided in our favour, these categories of retirees will benefit by higher updated pension than otherwise.
I feel retirees under all the three categories may wait for the written copy of the judgment before preferring their claims with LIC.