WHAT IF CLASS I FEDERATION DOES NOT FURNISH THE LIST OF MEMBERS TO LIC?

The interim relief was ordered by on 7/5/2015 to be paid to the respondent-employees within a period of 6 weeks. The period of six weeks expired on 18/6/2015.By its order of 7/5/2015, the Supreme Court had impliedly imposed a temporary stay of the Delhi High Court judgment thereby providing an opportunity for LIC to enjoy a prolonged stay of the said judgment until 23/9/2015 by paying 20% of amounts due to the petitioners under the impugned judgment within the prescribed period. By failing to adhere to the deadline of six weeks as ordered by the Supreme Court, LIC has lost that opportunity. For no justifiable reason, LIC has not only failed to comply with the order, but also chose to call for a list of members of the Federation  satisfying some  arbitrary parameters  after a period of 2 months of the date of the Supreme Court order .

If the Federation furnishes a list as asked for by the Corporation, it is going to walk into a trap laid by LIC.Once it receives the list from the Federation, LIC will try to justify before the Supreme Court its delayed action in implementing the SC order partly citing the reason of unavailability of the details of members eligible for interim relief and the time lag in obtaining the list from the Federation. By giving the list as asked for by LIC, the Federation is not going to do any good to a good number of pre-August 1997 retiree members who are going to be left out from consideration for payment of interim relief. The case of the Federation will also get weakened substantially, because the payment that will be made by LIC to the members who find a place in the list will be far short of the 20% of the entitled dues if the same method followed in case of payment of Jaipur and Chandigarh petitioners' dues in the High Court Registries is also followed for the Delhi petitioners .Further, invariably family  pensioners will be facing  recoveries instead of receiving arrears.

With the deadline for compliance with the Supreme Court order already long over, the payment of interim relief has become irrelevant.  In fact the Delhi High Court judgment remains with stay refused and it is binding on LIC for implementation with 100% benefits in rem instead of the 20% interim relief ordered by Supreme Court.

So the most desirable strategy for the Federation will be not to furnish the list asked for by the Corporation  and instead request LIC to pay  the full benefits   to all eligible retirees as Delhi High Court has made its judgment applicable in rem.

 Now that LIC has not complied with the SC order dt 7/5/2015, it is already vulnerable to the charge of contempt of court. By furnishing the list, the Federation will only be bailing out the Corporation from the potential contempt charge with no benefit to members.

Now it is for the leadership of the Federation to decide on the appropriate course of action to be followed.

Greetings.

C H Mahadevan