My good old friend shri MV Venugopalan is absolutely right

THIS IS A LETTER ADDRESSED TO SRI P.G.GANGADHARAN MY FRIEND, FROM CALICUT.
click above to go to Sri P.G.G .blog. 

I do not generally wish to enter into discussions through the chat column for the simple reason that I am no match to the erudition of regular participants like Subbu, Gangaraju, GKM, MVV and the likes.

 I howevever never fail to go through their views on various subjects projected through the said column. In that process one subject of discussions in today's post (15/9) attracted my attention and prompted me that  i should respond.

My good old friend shri MV Venugopalan is absolutely right when he says that in good old days Class 1 officers were also paid bonus .It was actually paid in the shape of "ex-gratia in lieu of bonus'' and the LIC by circular dated 13/9/ 1978 introduced a stipulation that class1 officers drawing total salary of less than Rs 1600/-p m alone would be eligible to draw this ex gratia.

 Prior to that all officers had received bonus up to and including the a/c year 1974-75.A couple of individual officers had gone to the Delhi High court on the issue of ceiling on salary and subsequently payment of bonus in any form was totally withdrawn for all class 1 officers from 1977- 78.

Thereafter I filed two writ petitions (WP  3972/1978 &  3973/1978) claiming bonus as a matter of right (art 14)  for class 1 officers and for quashing two orders of chairman passed in 1975 & 1978. Both the writs were combined and were pending disposal for nearly five years. At last the writs came up for final hearing in 1983 and the court dismissed both of them.

The scathing judgement of justice Nainar Sundaram was also reported - Vide 1983 (1) MLJ 388.In his judgement the Learned judge categorically held that officers constituting the managerial class were not entitled to Bonus as payment of bonus Act and other industrial legislation.

The above effort by me  nearly 40 years back has some significance (whatever may have been the result ) in that it was the FIRST ever case taken to the court by anybody on any matter pertaining to any service benefit of class 1 officers of LIC.It was also decided in the same year 1983 when the Supreme court delivered the famous NAKARA judgement.

Another interesting information relating to the said case is that the counsel who represented me and the federation was none other than shri P Chidambaram who later became the FM of the country (now in Tihar for other reasons.)  LIC was represented by shri J Kanakaraj who later became a judge of Madras high court and now retired. I as an advocate had later the good fortune of receiving a land mark judgement at his hands on a PIL filed by me on its merits.( I may be pardoned for these side infos which I could not resist keeping back)

If any one is interested I can send a copy of the judgement running to several pages. 

Though it is 36 year old judgement I have preserved it and not consigned to the dust bin .

-- GN Sridharan