The smiling faces in the latest post of the *unknown author are perhaps momentary mood-changers of readers of the post. The irony is that tremendous financial burden is being undertaken by AIRIEF for the legal fight narrowed down to a relatively few petitioners by the Supreme Court orders, while uncertainty looms in the horizon on the possibility of the large mass of eligible pensioners obtaining anomaly removal and upgradation of pension.
Even for an enlightened lay man it would be clear that no legal opinion is required on the desirability of the Federation getting impleaded in the Civil Appeals before the Supreme Court. Legal opinion arises only for the nity-gritties of filing the implead petition. The possible fear of a delay occurring in the legal process appears to me to be fallacious because, assuming that the three Civil Appeals are dismissed, a long- drawn struggle for making the judgment applicable to all similarly placed pensioners cannot be ruled out. Even the in rem principle validated by the Delhi High Court can be taken by LIC to mean that the benefits will be extendable to only the members of the Federation of Retired LIC Class I Officers’ Associations out of expediency. In that event what happens to more than about 35000 pensioners outside the Class I Federation? So does it not make sense for all Pensioners’ Federations/Associations to file an implead application in the Supreme Court?
Having said as above, I request readers to take my views as those of a lay man as I am not a qualified legal person.
Greetings,
C H Mahadevan
*Editor's Notes.