B SUDHAKAR

Dear Editor,

 

This happens to be my 

first post to our Pensioners 

Chronicle. Firstly my sincere 

thanks to you Dear (to all 

pensioners in India and abroad) 

Editor for creating this 

wonderful fast communicating 

platform for us.

No wonder it reached a million hits already. It will reach 10 million mark also soon. 

Congratulations to you sir.

I am not an expert in legal matters and court proceedings. Still I venture to share some of my thoughts relating to our case at S.C., now waiting for final disposal.
All of us know that Sri.Asthanaji won the first legal battle for us at Rajasthan High Court. LIC Pensioners remember this forever with reverence. The judgment in our favour is “implement board resolution”.

In two other High Courts i.e. New Delhi & Chandigarh we have similar judgments making a reference to Rajasthan H.C. judgement. Subsequent to this five long years elapsed from the date of Rajasthan HC judgement & we have the taste of LIC response in all the cases they lost. Still we are fighting the case contributing from our retiral income. GOI which choose to remain behind the curtain so far made an appearance now with their appeals.

Now all these SLP’s, CA’s & appeals of LIC GOI & ours are tagged together and are placed before the SC bench for final disposal. I feel here our goal should be to hit the target by

a) Exposing the adamant and not caring attitude of LIC for all court orders in this case and how gleefully LIC made the payments to the courts without giving any details and escape court contempts.

b) Exposing to the bench how LIC by quoting the present pension rules and some sections of Acts. Ex: Sec 48 etc for non complying with the court orders. I think this bla…bla.. of LIC & GOI will not stand legal scrutiny because the implementation of these rules and sections of acts resulting in depriving a homogeneous group of people the protection given by Articles 14, 16 & 21 of our Constitution. No rules of any institution and sections of act cannot be above our Constitution provisions and rights guaranteed thereunder.

• When the Court starts hearing it is the normal practice to allow first the appellants (LIC/GOI) to present their case first. I wish our counsels should allow this to happen and then thrash the presentation of the appellants instead of intervening and requesting the court to dismiss the appeals on technical grounds. If the latter happens, I am sorry to say that we will be in square one again i.e. “Implement board resolution” and starting our fight afresh.

Our efforts in hitting the target will be successful only when our counsels fighting the case on our behalf get a detailed “speaking order” regarding implementation of upgradation of pension with details such as effective date, time frame for compliance, interest if any etc. very similar to the judgement of Karnataka High Court in the case of Bangalore Water Board vs Board pensioners.

By getting such an order only from the SC, we the very senior citizen pensioners can be assured of getting their long waited dream of upgraded pensions & arrears.
I look with hope like other pensioners for this dream to be fulfilled. I request our President and Legal Committee (AIRIEF) urge our counsels to achieve this for us.
I conclude this with my sincere thanks to Mr.S.S.Saxena (who succeeded me as SDM at Raipur, while in service) presently our President and Sri.M.Sreenivasa Murty (known to me since 1950’s) for their friendly elaborations of the court proceedings in our case as & when I disturbed them by phone calls.

B.SUDHAKAR,
Visakhapatnam