I refer to the feedback of Mr V S Prakasa Rao
reproduced in your mail received by me which
states inter alia,“How is (KMLA) going to take care of the 5
petitioners of post Aug.97 , especially
when GNS and AIIPA took the stand that the benefit of the
Nov.2001 resolution relate to only the Pre Aug 97 pensioners to get 100%
D.R neutralisation which was taken advantage by the L.I.C “.
I wish to hasten to air my opinion that we need not dwell too much exclusively on the Board Resolution of
24/11/2001 passed by LIC.What is more important as far as Jaipur SJB judgment
is concerned is that the Bench allowed two writ petitions.
The first writ petition was for removing the DR anomaly and neutralisation
of DR on equitable basis on par with
in-service employees.This means that the DR formula has been
in fact ordered to be amended
w.e.f 1/11/1993 with the slabs which were applicable to
in-service employees as per 1/8/1987
& 1/8/1992 wage revisions instead of cutting the slabs by half.
The other writ petition (654/2007) was for upgradation of pension on substituted scales of pay with every wage revision. This means that irrespective of the LIC Board Resolution, pensions will have to be upgraded for all eligible pensioners on 1/8/1997, 1/8/2002, 1/8/2007 and all future wage revision dates.
No doubt the operative part of the Jaipur
judgment has directed LIC to take steps
to implement the LIC Board Resolution.It is true that considering the context
in which the Resolution was passed ,the decision applies to only pre-August 1997 retirees. LIC is taking advantage
of the ambiguities in the wordings of the Resolution to interpret it to its own
advantage taking only the merger of DR
as on 1/8/1997 and revising the pension and leaving weightage as done for in-service employees and similar upgradation
on 1/8/2002 and future effective wage revision dates. If the true spirit of the
LIC Board Resolution is understood, it provides for upgradation of pension for
pre-August 1997 retirees on all wage revision dates from 1/8/1997 onwards,
besides removing the DR anomaly from 1/11/1993.
As a corollary, once the Jaipur judgment is
properly implemented, the Board Resolution gets automatically implemented
besides the removal of DR anomaly and 100% DR neutralization besides providing
upgradation of pension for all post-July 1997 retirees also.I am sure Mr K M L
A sthana is very well aware of this and definitely press for justice for the five post-July 1997 retirees also.
Consequently, as long as the Jaipur SJB
judgment remains stay-refused, our focus
should be on emphasizing on implementation of the Justice
Bhandari judgment without segregated
reference to the Board Resolution.At best the LIC Board Resolution is only to
be taken as an enabling document even
considering the that the Jaipur Bench has taken cognizance of it.
Kind regards.
C H Mahadevan