OUR CASE IN SC

FEDERATION OF RETIRED LIC CLASS I OFFICERS' ASSOCIATIONS     

President :    N.P. Bali 705, Sur, Veena Saaz, Thakur Complex, Kandivali (East), Mumbai - 400 101 Mob : 9820324213                   Email Id - npbali@hotmail.com

General Secretary :    D Krishnan No.6/1, Sreshta Riverside Apartments, Wood Creek Road, Nandambakkam, Chennai - 600089 Tel : 9176635967 / 044 42850049. Email Id - dkrishnan1@gmail.com

Ecircular No.DK/91                                                  26-11-2019

Friends,           

It's just over 10 days to go, for the Kolkata General Council Meeting, on the 8th of Dec. Even so, I thought if there are snippets of information to be shared, we should go ahead and share it with  all.

Yesterday, the 25th of Nov. we had information coming in saying , the Cause List  of cases posted for the 26th of Nov., ie., today, in the SC, carries the reference to our SLP along with that of the other 5  Petitions filed. Till the day before , it was only a Computer list, where only Sri Asthana's, and one more Petition, were under reference. We were in fact asking questions as to why the split up of the petitions, which hitherto, on the  Court records, were hanging together.

 So, yesterday's last minute inclusion of all the Petitioners' cases in the Cause List, was a surprise and we have advised our Advocate On Record, to ask for time, if our cases do come up as listed. Actually the Cases are listed under 'Supplementary List' and the item number is 30 for the day, in Court no 14. The Bench indicated,  consists of two Hon'ble Judges, Sri Abdul Nazeer and Sri Deepak Gupta.  If the time request is granted, then we will need to make sure that the next date is clear of the Dates for our GC Meeting at Kolkata.

Bank Negotiations are still not concluded, and we are not certain what will be there and what will not be, as part of Benefits decided for the settlement. We do hope by the time we meet at Kolkata, there will be something known of this long drawn matter.

There was a letter from the LIC CO, received by our President Sri Baliji, and later forwarded to me. It is in response to a communication purportedly from our side, dt. 22-08-2019. It turned out on verification with records, that this was not a reference from our side to LIC, but a letter to the Minister of State for Finance  Sri Anurag Thakur, who was met by a combined Delegation of Retired Officers (including our President Sri Bali) of LIC , who met him at Delhi on the 22nd of Aug. 2019,  and handed over a Letter to him on that date! We are led to presume that the Ministry had forwarded it to LIC suggesting the line of Reply to be sent. The wordings were very similar to the one received months ago , from the Finance Ministry, in response to my letter to the Secretary Financial services, Sri Rajiv Kumar. It referred to the Delhi HC which had not accepted out request for Revision of Pension, as also the fact that we had gone to SC  with our SLPs and the matter is sub-judice. With this background our requests for Revision, Family Pension enhancement and 5 yearly rise for super seniors, were all rejected. This is a routine response, meant to close the file and nothing else.  We would still be pursuing these matters, as done earlier, on the reply from the ministry of Finance , to my letter to the Secretary Financial Services.

Meanwhile we will need to get alert about the Court Case, and the line of approach , in consultation with the other petitioners. The Bench being new, our approach can also be new. Justice Deepak Gupta, who is part of this new Bench, was in the earlier Bench too, Hearing our case along with Sri Madan Lokur, who retired in Dec last year. So much for now, \

With Greetings to all

D.Krishnan

General Secretary