Dear Mr Sahni
The appeal by Mr Nan Narayenen of Madurai, published in your
blog today, makes interesting reading. It should be an eye-opener not only to
all our six petitioners in the arena but to the entire pensioner community of
LIC. The suggested approach to DHC judgement is not only pragmatic but the need
of the hour. There should be a two-pronged approach (1) to help pre-August 1997
pensioners to get their immediate gains, however unrealistic it may be, without
loss of time and (2) to pursue remaining unattained goals by simultaneous
further legal recourse.
The fast depleting pre-August 1997 septuagenarian and
octogenarian pensioners have already heavily suffered financially for 20 long
years and need urgent succour by way of financial gains, however paltry and
unrealistic it may me. It is a fact that the Supreme Court’s order of 40%
interim IR not only provided some financial relief but enabled the recipients
to contribute liberally to the legal expenses of the petitioners. As the saying
goes, a bird in hand is better than two in the bush.
As suggested by Mr Narayenen, there is an urgent need for
all the petitioners to call on LIC in a delegation and pressurise the
management to implement the judgement forthwith and start paying the revised
pension in terms of the DHC judgement wef May 2017 itself. LIC should also be pressurised to calculate
and pay the arrears upto April 2017 before end of June2017. Petitioners should
note that this move will also enable the beneficiaries to further contribute to
their legal expenses to pursue the matter further with the Supreme Court.
The suggestion to bifurcate our issues of 100% DA
neutralisation and continuous up-gradation of pension and file a separate
single petition on behalf of all the six petitioners for Upgradation of Pension
with Supreme Court merits serious consideration at the present stage.
We cannot afford to overlook Mr Narayenen’s significant
observation “We do not have the manpower or machinery to bring the Govt. to a
halt like the Bank Employees do, nor or our current serving brethren are willing
to go on strike for our cause. Hence we will have to HAVE FAITH IN GOD”. More
than everything, can we, pensioners afford an unending legal struggle involving
unpredictably huge legal expenses in the long run?
Regards
V. Gopalan
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