PENSIONERS BEWARE (IN LIC & ELSEWHERE)
WE ARE LOSING GROUND, like beach sand below our feet. We need to ACT to stop the erosion and regain our position of strength.
Many would have watched last night, the spirited panel discussions on the mainstream electronic media focussing on the ever elusive OROP commitment by the Government of the day. One leading national Channel asked the panellists and its viewers ‘Is OROP a reality or a pipedream’? The official spokespersons of BJP & Congress (both had no clue of what is going on in the corridors of power) had simply cut a sorry figure before the Nation.
Some of our Pensioner-colleagues have already written to the Chronicle questioning the wisdom/correctness of the Bank Employee Associations in signing the settlement and in being a party to the joint ‘Notorious Note’. Let us not be naïve to think that the Bank Unions had any choice in it. It’s a diktat from the Government. Just conveyed by the IBA adding strength from its own known stand. If the Bank Unions don’t sign on the dotted line, there is no 10th BPS. LIC top management and our own employee Unions, have reasons to rejoice. They could spread their philosophy to Banking Sector.
I have already given my views on the new scene that is dangerously emerging. It is going to be Sovereign Government, willing Managements, openly supported by the in-service employee Unions. All ganging up to isolate, disable and leave the pensioners in the lurch. We should not underestimate the significance of the choice phrases in the Joint Note. It reflects a firm resolve to keep the retirees permanently under check. Clear all hurdles to complete the process. Exploit the vulnerability of the retirees. It’s a diabolical game.
When ex-servicemen could almost be ditched so brazenly by not honouring the OROP commitment, when Supreme Court’s stern orders can be kept in cold storage with such a criminal indifference, when categorical assurances to the Reserve Bank retirees could be reneged and its Governor silenced, where do we the LIC Pensioners stand? How does one explain the direct entry of the Union of India in LIC’s on-going CAs full FIVE YEARS after the judgements were delivered? They are determined not to take any chances in the matter.
What is the way out? Certainly not keep quiet or buckle under the pressure of attacks from multiple fronts. Let us come together and search for the best solution, under the circumstances. Collaborate with retirees in all other sectors. Loudly announce that the next in the line of firing would be Government servants and even the judiciary. Let us actively organize the ‘counter ripple effect’.
It is time that we do not rest any more and be content with our so-called favourable judgements, Board Resolutions, tacit approvals and the like. Let us project our case and protect our rights at a much higher level. For that our current level of preparedness is hopelessly inadequate. By the time our Appeals are taken up for hearing in September 2015, we should try to organize every other section of the retirees, including RBI & Public sector Banks to file fresh batches of writs/implead and come before the Bench. We should be able to ask for a larger Constitutional Bench to hear the entire gamut of the ‘CASE & INALIENABLE RIGHTS’ of the country’s total retiree-class. The APEX Court should be persuaded to re-visit the Nakara case and restate and lay the law once and for all in such a manner that the Government will have no choice except ‘fall in line’.
The task is gigantic. But it is eminently doable. Country’s best legal luminaries should be hired overcoming the financial constraints. One big name for ALL LIC Pensioners, one for RBI and one for ALL Public Sector Banks, should be engaged to argue before a Constitutional Bench to address and resolve the common issues coming in the way of implementing OROP as the Country’s policy – uniformly, without exceptions.
THERE IS NO OTHER WAY
M Sreenivasa Murty
29.05.2015