Greetings from President of our Federation.

Dear friends,

Wish you all a very Happy and prosperous New Year. May you and all family members enjoy excellent health all through and enjoy every moment. Pray for success for all the efforts in our case in  the Supreme Court.  Best wishes.

Regards,

N.P. Bali

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FEDERATION OF RETIRED LIC CLASS I OFFICERS' ASSOCIATIONS     

President :    N.P. Bali 705, Sur, Veena Saaz, Thakur Complex, Kandivali (East), Mumbai - 400 101 Mob : 9820324213 Email Id - npbali@hotmail.com

General Secretary :    D Krishnan No.6/1, Sreshta Riverside Apartments, Wood Creek Road, Nandambakkam, Chennai - 600089 Tel : 9176635967 / 044 42850049. Email Id - dkrishnan1@gmail.com

E circular No.DK/51                                                       31-12-2018

Friends,

This one, is more  of a message of Greetings for the New Year than anything special by way of information  on the Federation Front. So, We, The President, the undersigned, and the other office bearers of the Federation along with  the Team  that works from here, on the Federation messages , convey our Hearty  Good Wishes to the entire community of Retired Class I Pensioners,  for the New Year.  The Year 2019, incidentally, carries our fond Hopes , for things to turn our way, as the year unfolds, and the Courts take their  positions on our matters.

Sri Rajagopalan from Bengaluru, was here on a private visit during Christmas, and we took advantage of the opportunity to have an informal meeting with him. The interesting thing is that, we met in the Residence of Sri C H Mahadevan,  of the Hyderabad Assn. who is now settled   in Chennai, and  is currently convalescing after a surgery.  He was good enough to host our exchange- of- views meet,  and also added his own valuable view points, to the discussions.

Since there has been a lot of criss-cross views on Rule 3 A of Appendix 4 of Pension Rules, we thought this meeting could get into the academics of Rule 3A  in a more clear way. The view that emerged was  that Rule 3 A  which was at the centre of the reference made by the Supreme Court to the Delhi High Court, spells out  the DR principle for the Post 1997 Retirees,  thereby giving rise to a discriminatory position with regards to the Graded DR system  that prevailed prior to Aug 1997.  If the discriminatory aspect of Rule 3 A is removed, then , that principle of DR neutralization followed for post 1997 retirees should automatically apply across the board to all retirees irrespective of the date of retirement.

The proper understanding of this Rule 3A becomes essential , when we press for Up-grading  of Pensions, because we would then be talking of an up-grading of pensions, which would mean one and the same thing for all pensioners.  The moot point to be appreciated  is that the DA/DR patterns for the in-service employees  and the retired officers were different  in the scenario prior to Aug 1997, due to the graded structure applying  on pay/pension ranges, which were not same. After Aug 1997, the DA/DR  pattern  to in-service officers, and pensioners,  was made uniform,  eliminating (a) the graded system and (b) ensuring full Neutralization.

So, correcting the discriminatory aspect of 3A would bring parity in the manner the DA/DR patterns would fall equally, on all pensioners. Once this is established, then all we need to do is to invoke Rule 3B of Pension Rules in conjunction with Rule 56 of Pension Rules  to pave  the way for up grading our Pensions to maintain  some sense of parity , as it obtains in the Central Civil Services Employees' case.

Rule 3B of Pension Rules  states, "In case of any wage Revision in future the Rate of Dearness Relief payable to an employee shall be determined by the Corporation corresponding to the Index to which the Scale is linked".

Rule 56  states, "Matters relating to Pension and other Benefits in respect of which no express provision has been made in these Rules, shall be governed by the corresponding provisions contained in the  Central Civil Services Pension Rules 1972, or the Central Civil Services (commutation of Pension) Rules 1981, applicable for Central Govt Employees."

It was also made out in the discussions, that the Pay Commission Recommendations  for Central Govt Pensioners , which are implemented through Gazette Notifications,  have the same force of Law , for our purposes of comparison, as part of the CCS Rules, which applies through the Rule 56.

 The discussions also took stock of a possible common approach from here on, by the  Petitioners who are now divided by different approaches in Court, though the goal we are pushing towards is the same. The earnest feeling is that we should develop a joint-front model,  at least through ground level strategies  which are planned in consultations with each other.  It is fairly apparent that at least 4 of the 6 Petitioners are likely to join in for this common approach.

 In the tail piece to this Communication, I am reproducing an interesting account,  from the ever optimistic Sri M Arunachalam,   member of the erstwhile Legal committee, on an initiative he undertook, at his personal level. It goes as under:

"Six months back I represented to the LIC for their paying additional Pension (20%, 30% etc.) for pensioners aged 80, 85 ... and so on. On my request Sri GNS also represented personally and very passionately.  The  reply from LIC, was in the Negative. I decided to pursue further till its logical end (definitely not approaching judiciary for valid reasons).

In the 2nd attempt, the Govt. Public Grievance system received the very same negative reply from LIC.  In the 3rd attempt, I pointed out the erroneous response to the Grievance system; this time the response was not negative, but pleaded 'sub-judice'. This petition relates to an additional pension and not any updation. In the 4th attempt, I petitioned the Ministers Finance and Law in Sept. 2018.  In the 5th attempt, as I approached the Tamil Nadu Senior Citizens' Association (Registered), they took up the matter, with these Departments. The information now available from the FS department is ‘the matter under petition … is under examination in consultation with Life Insurance Corporation of India’. This looks to be a silver line in the dark cloud, and something good will hopefully emerge ere long." 

That then is the 'never say Die' spirit of this man who keeps on at it, and now , possibly, the New Year gives him new hopes. Let's Wish his attempt all the luck ..

So Wishing all once again a very Happy New Year .... 

D.Krishnan.                                                                                               General Secretary