pension to Regional Rural Bank staff on par with Public sector bank staff

[Vijaysankar Turlapati]

At the behest of supreme court, National industrial Tribunal headed by sri justice Obulreddy gave judgment extending parity of salary and allowances to RRB staff on par with public sector bank employees.But GoI did not extend parity in pension and PF benefits on par with PSB staff. Union filed a case in Karnataka High court, which gave its judgment on 22.03.11 directing GoI to extend parity of pension. As GoI did not heed the judgment, another union (Gramin Bank pensioners’ samithi) from Rajasthan state filed a case in Supreme court in 2005 on the same issue. The apex court advised the GBPS to approach Rajasthan High Court for relief. Consequently when approached the Rajsthan high court, the division bench in its judgment dated 23.08.12 also directed the GoI to extend parity of pension within three months as pension is a differed wage and not a bounty.But GoI filed SLP(39288/2012) in Supreme court for grant of stay on Rajsthan High court order and filed an affidavit agreeing to pay pension subjected to profitability of RRBs. Surprisingly the GoI is seeking many adjournments on some pretext or other and not allowing to come for trial.
1.My question is when GBPS went to high court on the direction of the supreme court, and when division bench of Rajsthan high court gave judgment to extend parity of pension without taking the profitability issue, how can the SLP is maintainable?
2.Nearly 3000 retirees died during the five years period.
3..what to do to bring the case to the branch for immediate trial.

Vijaysankar turlapati (vst53@yahoo.com)

[Dr. Ashok Dhamija]

Though I have not seen the order of the Supreme Court asking the Gramin Bank Pensioners’ Samithi to approach the Rajasthan High Court, it generally happens when a party directly approaches the Supreme Court [generally, under Article 32 of the Constitution by filing a writ petition] before first going to the high court, and due to this the Supreme Court refuses to entertain such direct petition and advises the party to first approach the high court concerned. In such matters, the Supreme Court has not decided the issue and has rather refused to entertain the petition directly and has merely advised the party to first approach the high court. Therefore, the high court has the power to decide such issues independently on merits of the case. Such order of high court can definitely be challenged by filing SLP, since previously the Supreme Court did not hear the case on merits and merely advised the party to approach the high court first. There is nothing illegal in filing such SLP. It is permissible.

Death of 3000 pensioners in the meanwhile is unfortunate, But, delay in courts is quite common and neither the Government nor the court are doing anything to improve the system.

Your advocate in the Supreme Court can mention the matter in the Supreme Court and request the Court to expedite the hearing of the case, also giving the above reason of death of so many pensioners and whatever other reasons are there for expediting the case. If the court agrees, the SLP can be heard expeditiously.

     

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Dr. Ashok Dhamija is a New Delhi based Supreme Court Advocate and author of law books. Read more about him by clicking here. List of his Forum Replies. List of his other articles. List of his Quora Answers. List of his YouTube Videos.

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