Dear Mr Sahni,
I attach my Post for publication in the Blog.
Thanks and regards,
Sreenivasa Murty Mulukutla
106, Hill County
Nizampet Road, Bachupally
Nizampet Road, Bachupally
HYDERABAD 500090
+919177737356
M SREENIVASA MURTY May 1, 2017
THE DELHI HIGH COURT JUDGEMENT
AND AFTER
Dear LIC Pensioners,
I am extremely thankful to all
those who contacted me through emails and calls to convey support and sympathy
in the hour of crisis.
THANKS BIG TO EVERY ONE OF YOU.
I AM BACK, HUMBLED BUT DETERMINED. IN SEARCH OF A NEW AND RIGHT PATH. Sri C H
Mahadevan, my Mentor, seems to have already made good headway. I need to catch
up.
THE JUDGEMENT:
HOPELESSLY PERVERSE. A
compendium of omissions & commissions. A somersault of sorts.
Contradictions galore. Penned by a hand without mind, as if it was to please
somebody.
I wish to do some plain talk
(of course in hindsight) and move on. I will ask the relevant questions and
provide the answers myself.
Q. What was the relief prayed
by the Petitioners?
Ans. Revision of Pension with
each Pay-Revision. There are several grounds in support of the prayer and equal
number, if not more, to oppose.
Q.
Who is the decision-making authority in respect of the only issue under
adjudication?
Ans. Union of India, by virtue
of Sec 48 (2) of LIC Act 1956.
Q. Does LIC have any power or
Authority to allow or deny the Revision of Pension with each Pay Revision?
Ans. No. Not even power to
recommend, going by the fate of its Board Resolution dated 24.11.2001.
Q. When the power to agree or
reject the Prayer is vested in UoI and not at all in LIC, who should be
‘talking’ before the DHC mainly? Having been correctly arraigned as the First
Respondent by some of the Petitioners (a possible mistake by Hyderabad – I was
over ruled by my Counsel when our WP was being drafted).
Ans. UoI, much more than LIC.
Q. Has it happened as it should
have?
Ans. No, except for filing the
Counter Affidavit dated ..Sept 2016 opposing the prayer for Revision of Pension
on various grounds.
Q. On what grounds chiefly?
Ans. For a long time it used to
be on two grounds i) that LIC Pension Rules 1995 are drawn on the lines of Bank
Pension Rules and NOT on the lines of CCS Pension Rules and ii) If Revision is
allowed in LIC it will have a ripple effect on the rest of the entire Financial
Sector meaning RBI, NABARD, all Public Sector Banks and GIC. Eventually all
other GoI Undertakings.
Q.
Were the two main grounds as stated above tenable and were they pursued
vigorously by the UoI before DHC?
Ans. No.
Q. Why?
Ans. Both grounds are sure to
be thrown out, one being factually incorrect and the other being a potential
invitation to ridicule before being rejected.
Q. What has UoI done?
Ans. Made LIC only talk. Did
not argue its case as per its Counter Affidavit Instead, UoI on 25 Jan 2017
filed a detailed Background Note (totally a cut paste job of the Pension Rules)
where the two main grounds advanced earlier were conspicuously absent.
Q. What happened on 25 Jan
2017?
Ans. The Bench was terribly
annoyed with the contents of the Note which Sri Tushar Mehta, Additional
Solicitor General of India could not defend, He repeatedly apologised to the
Bench especially for leaving a blank about the date of a (non-existing)
Notification and offering to file a fresh revised/corrected Note. The Order
passed by the Court on that day was:
Learned Solicitor General, who appears for Union
of India, has also made a statement that the Union of India would be filing
their revised/corrected written submissions within ten days.
Q. Was it done?
Ans.
No. UoI did not file any revised/corrected Note and did not also argue its
case.
Q. Can anybody say that
Government of India had no big stake in the outcome of ‘Pension Revision in
LIC’ case before DHC?
Ans. Government has very high
stakes (many times more than LIC) in the Judgement reserved on 21 Feb 2017.
Q. What exactly is the concern
of the Government of India?
Ans. That by all available
indications, LIC pension case was clearly and emphatically going in favour of
the Pensioners/Petitioners. LIC had virtually conceded the matter as observed
on the concluding day. Reports would have gone accordingly to the DFS. That UoI
had shied away even from putting up the ASG to argue its case, is sure to go
against it.
Q. What follows a pro-pensioner
Judgement by DHC?
Ans. LIC Pensioners will have a
cakewalk before the Supreme Court in getting the DHC Judgement upheld. For the
UoI, it means opening up of the floodgates. It will only be a question of time
that the Government of India would face insurmountable pressure to pay to ALL
others, waiting heavily for LIC Judgement. A situation totally unacceptable to
the Government.
Q. What has to be done?
Ans. Nip it in the bud.
****
**** **** ****
On March 24, 2017, Mr Saurav
Agrawal, our Counsel Team Lead was informed that LIC’s Sr Advocate Mr Dayan
Krishnan, was directed by the Court to file a Rejoinder to our Written
Submissions dated 5 March 2017 and that a copy of our W/S was to be sent to him
for the purpose. The Rejoinder was filed by LIC on the last working day.
Although it contained twisted averments and incorrect facts, we had no chance
to oppose them. The Judgement extensively dealt with the additional data that surfaced
for the first time in the Rejoinder to Written Submissions. A rejoinder to W/S
itself is a rare thing to occur. Minimum Pension Revision occupied the centre
stage. Whose prayer was it anyway? When on 27 April 2017, our WPs were ‘partly
allowed’ the allowed parts came from nobody’s prayers. And the largesse of not
having to refund 40% is in fact a clever way of denying the balance of 60%. The
fact that the UoI, the real Respondent said nothing before DHC, did not bother
the Bench. A perverse Judgement.
I had great faith in our
Judicial Institutions. I still have – but in the Supreme Court of India. That
is our last resort – next only to the Supreme God.
**** **** **** ****
We feel bad if there is a theft
in the house. The needle of suspicion moves in different directions. The loss
as such troubles us but sometimes if the thief is caught, we feel better even
if the
loss
is not recovered. Not totally comparable but if one can zero in on why we lost
our case, one may feel less miserable. I am in that mode.
(to be
concluded later today, with ‘What next….”.)
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