The Federation of Retired LIC Class I Officers' Association,by not
clubbing the issue of upgradation of pension while filing the Writ
Petition in 2007 had -in my opinion- committed a fatal blunder for
three reasons as follows:
1)100%
DR neutralisation was possible only from 1/8/1997 and the Board
Resolution dt 24/11/2001 had rightly recognised this reality and
decided to upgrade the pension for pre-August 1997 retirees. from that
date.
But the
methodology adopted by LIC while interpreting the Board Resolution
while sending the illustrative chart to the MoF and the calculations
made subsequently following the Jaipur Judgment were faulty in the
following manner:
(i) The rate of DR which was anomalous was not rectified;
(ii)
Without such rectification the faulty DR was calculated upto
1/8/1997 for merger with Basic Pension at AICPI 1740 points
(iii) Such merged amount was taken without adding the weightage of 11.25% as revised pension.
In
other words LIC resorted to a distorted interpretation of the LIC
Board Resolution to give an one-time upgradation in a half-hearted
manner to determine the revised pension of an inadequate
amount.from 1/8/1997.
2) When
such an approach for pre-August 1997 retirees was adopted by LIC, how
could they logically not adopt the same approach of merging DR with
Basic Pension for subsequent generations of pensioners on the immediate
next wage revision dates ?
3) Also
such an approach cannot stop with one effective date of wage revision
but has to be followed for all subsequent wage revision dates.
In
other words, although the DR anomaly was confined to only pre-August
1997 retirees, the process followed by LIC cannot be divorced from
the process of upgradation of pension for all generation of pensioners.
So
it is not correct to say that the setback in DHC was on account of
clubbing the issue of full DR neutralisation with that of
upgradation. The Board Resolution - if correctly understood -in fact
means that the issue of DR neutralisation cannot be handled in isolation
without handling upgradation of pension.
The
adverse verdict in DHC is not because of lack of merits, but because of
the view taken by the Bench on its own consideration and has no
constitutional finality..Its validity has to be adjudicated in the
Supreme Court as stated in the SC order dated 31/3/2016 .
Greetings.
C H Mahadevan
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