Lockdown Musings
Part I
The entire nation is under the grip of extreme anxiety due the impact of the deadly covid-19 virus. Though most of us got an unusual opportunity to spend time on a 24/7 basis for the last two months with our families,the fact remains that we have no clue on when will be able to resume our natural ways of life. In my personal view the Govts.both at the centre and states have been doing whatever is possible to tackle the prevailing grim situation despite criticisms from politically motivated quarters. We also see the govt being confused on how to jack up the sagging economy.
In such an unprecedented situation, we can treat this as an appropriate time to reflect on the actions taken by us in relation to the issues confronting us and review them .It also provides us the time to devote our thoughts on how we should proceed when the situation hopefully normalises. The following lines are therefore intended to share my thoughts in that direction
We, LIC pensioners constitute a part of the community of Pensioners of Financial institutions in Public sector, the others being SBI, Nationalised banks, GIC and last but not the least RBI. Let us realise that out of the said list, RBI is on a seperate level occupying a special place in the eyes of the govt because of the role it is supposed to play in steering the economy and even any comparison with RBI pensioners may not help our causes be it with the judiciary or the Govt. SBI also has its own pension rules and IBA does not have direct jurisdiction to deal with the problems of their employees /pensioners. That therefore leaves only the pensioners of nationalised banks as the 'first cousins' of the pensioners of the Insurance sector (LIC & GIC) .Let me remind that it is the 'policy' of the govt to club Banking & Insurance in regard to the emoluments of their employees/pensioners and consequently the basic point to be borne in our minds is that judiciary will not interfere on the decisions of the executive except when any decision/action offends any constitutional guarantees available to us as citizens.
Again having had a long experience in handling LIC pensioners' issues , efficiently or otherwise as per anybody's assessment , the main issues that we along with pensioners of the Banking sector (particularly nationalised banks) have to contend with and the hitches and road blocks faced in our actions can be dealt with under four broad topics as follows :
1) DR Anamoly : This has witnessed a fiercely fought out Legal battle for nearly a decade and a half. We were the first to seek judicial redress by filing WP 184/2007 in the Delhi HC .We were lucky to get favourable order in 2010 but in the appeal filed by LIC / GOI combine the Supreme court by its order passed in 3/2016 remanded it back to Delhi HC for a finding on the constitutional validity of Rule 3 A of our pension rules. The Delhi HC in its second innings gave a confusing order by which while broadly accepting our contention on discrimination prescribed its own formula for neutralisation of DR resulting in our demand for 100 % nutralisation getting diluted.In any case we achieved a near 100% neutralisation if not fully.
Our pensioner brothers in banking sector also had an identical problem except the cut off date for denial of 100% DR in their case was 11/2002 as against 8/97 in our case. They had also gone to the court on the issue and their litigation had gone through two streams viz 1) from Madras HC where the petitioners were the pensioners four nationalised banks including Bank of Baroda and 2) from Kolkata HC where the matter was initiated for the pensioners of United Bank of India.While a single judge of the Madras HC had allowed the Writ the Division bench set aside the same. In Kolkata HC the order was clear and categorical in granting 100% neutralisation as prayed for. The matters arising from both the High courts were taken to the Supreme court which clubbed both and unfortunately passed a combined order detrimental to the interests of the pensioners. Review petitions were filed and it also failed. The UBI pensioners organisation filed a curative petition and that was also dismissed recently on /5/2020 after the matter was heard through video conferencing.
With the dismissal of the curative petition of UBI I am of the firm view that the curtains are drawn on the issue of denial of 100% DR neutralisation and it would be absolutely futile for any party to even think of agitating any further. In fact shri G Palani the President of BOB retired officers' was good enough to seek my opinion in the matter and I have advised him that in the context of the need for us to concentrate on the larger and more important issue of up gradation of pension it would be wise and advisable to treat the issue as closed.
Before concluding this subject I am sure that even the partial success had accrued only to LIC pensioners and perhaps it was the only major and common benefit that came the way of at least a section of LIC pensioners in over a decade. I take pardonable pride in having been instrumental in leading to near victory through the judiciary on the issue.
G N Sridharan
To be continued
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