My Dear Friends,
"FIAT JUSTITIA RUAT CAELUM FIAT JUSTITIA RUAT CAELUM (Let justice be done, though the world perish")
"PENSION REGULATIONS WERE AMMENDED IN 2017 THROUGH BANK (EMPLOYEES') PENSION REGULATIONS, 1995 MADE PURSUENT TO ACT 5 OF 1970 MEANT FOR CONFERRING BENEFITS ON ITS SUBJECTS.
IT WAS AMMENDED IN 2017 THROUGH (BANK EMPLOYEES') PENSION (AMMENDMENT) REGULATIONS, 2017 (PAR 2017) IN A SHOCKING WAY.
THE PAR, 2017 SEEKS TO JUSTIFY THE BREACHES OF THE PRINCIPAL REGULATIONS BY ITS MAKERS IN A SELF-DEFEATING WAY.
SECTION 19 OF THE ACT CONFERS POWERS TO MAKE REGULATIONS THAT ARE NOT INCONSISTENT WITH THE ACT OR ANY SCHEME MADE THEREUNDER."
MY CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR LEARNED FRIEND COM. CN VENUGOPALAN FOR HIS PAINS-TAKING EFFORTS TO HIGHLIGHT THE BLATENT BREACHES CREATED BY BRINGING AMMENDMENTS TO THE PENSION REGULSTIONS BELATEFLY IN 2017 - IN A SELF- DEFEATNG WAY... A CUNNING & COVERT OPERATION BY THE BANKS/IBA.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rNW86sPzIAQS6grJ-BaS9EdTLG5hLIf5/view?usp=drivesdk
CONTENTS ARE SELF EXPLICIT.
దేవులపల్లి శ్రీనివాస మూర్తి
✴️QUOTE✴️
N VENUGOPALAN
Ex-Manager, Union Bank of India
‘Nandanam’, Kesari Junction, N Paravur, Kerala-683513 Mob:9447747994
No.230604
04th June, 2023
To:
THE HONOURABLE CHIEF JUSTICE OF INDIA, COMPANION JUDGES OF SUPREME
COURT AND JUDGES OF HIGH COURTS (AT RANDOM)
JUDGES BEWARE
Respected Lordships,
At the outset, I would like to inform Honourable judges that the Pension Regulations of banks which is a subordinate legislation contains certain provisions that are inconsistent with the parent legislation, the Banking Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings) Act, 1970. Unless someone points out the inconsistencies, it is only natural for the judges to assume that everything in the Pension Regulations is in order and not inconsistent with the parent legislation.
The purpose of any law is to ensure orderly behaviour and ultimate justice to all. If the laws are disorderly, the judges will not be able to interpret them for reaching accurate conclusions on their basis.
IT WAS AMMENDED IN 2017 THROUGH BANK (EMPLOYEES') PENSION REGULATIONS, 1995 MADE PURSUENT TO ACT 5 OF 1970 MEANT FOR CONFERRING BENEFITS ON ITS SUBJECTS.
IT WAS AMMENDED IN 2017 THROUGH (BANK EMPLOYEES') PENSION (AMMENDMENT) REGULATIONS, 2017 (PAR 2017) IN A SHOCKING WAY.
THE PAR, 2017 SEEKS TO JUSTIFY
THE BREACHES OF THE PRINCIPAL REGULATIONS BY ITS MAKERS IN A SELF-DEFEATING WAY.
SECTION 19 OF THE ACT CONFERS POWERS TO MAKE REGULATIONS THAT ARE NOT INCONSISTENT WITH THE ACT OR ANY SCHEME MADE THEREUNDER.
Certain provisions of the PAR, 2017 are inconsistent with the Act and the Pension Scheme made thereunder.
They were made with a fraudulent averment that the banks make the regulations in exercise of powers conferred by the Act, while in fact, the Act confers no such powers and rather prohibits making the amendments. Instead of conferring any benefit, they are depriving the benefits conferred by the parent legislation or they are using the legislation to confer a benefit to a section of pensioners and to deny it to another section of pensioners on the basis of the date of retirement, which is proscribed by the law laid down by the Supreme Court. The evil amendments take away the statutorily vested rights and the property of the beneficiaries in a corrupt way. The judges who reach conclusions on the basis of the PAR, 2017 are prone to errors without reaching the ends of justice.
The Bank (Employees’) Pension Regulations are made in consultation with Reserve Bank of India and with the previous sanction of the Central Government. Nationalised banks, in spite of being autonomous bodies, are governed by the Central Government, more precisely by the Department of Financial Services. In other words, the Central Government caused the banks, which have to exercise utmost integrity in each and every transaction, to make fraudulent regulations to short-change their own employees in breach of trust and snatch away the retirement benefits available to them under the statutory Pension Regulations.
The excerpts of the PAR, 2017 of Union Bank of India, one of the nationalized banks,which contain malicious and void provisions is attached for information of judiciary, explaining the irregularities in it :--
The salient features are :-–
1. The PAR, 2017 is a fraudulent law-making to give legs to the wrongful acts of raising a contribution to the Pension Funds of banks and denial of pension from the date of retirement to an arbitrarily determined date of 27.11.2009 on the basis of a Settlement/Joint Note dated 27.04.2010, which infringe the provisions of the statutory Pension Regulations. Banks had raised a contribution of 2.8 times their pay for November, 2007 from employees on rolls and 56 percent of CPF paid at the time of retirement from retired employees and families of deceased employees in addition to surrender/refund of CPF (referred to infra as “the contributions”) for giving them option for pension in 2010.
2. The gazette notification aka the Pension (Amendment) Regulations, 2017 is caused in the name of the Ministry of Finance and authenticated ultra vires by the General Manager (HR) of the Bank, making it de facto irregular.
3. The averment in the opening of the notification that the Board of the Bank makes the regulations in exercise of powers conferred by clause (f) of sub section 2 of section 19 of the Act 5 of 1970 is false and fraudulent as the banks have powers to make only regualtions that are NOT INCONSISTENT WITH THE PENSION
SCHEME and certain amendments vide clause 3, 3 (b) and 8 (b) of PAR, 2017 are INCONSISTENT WITH THE PENSION SCHEME.
4. Clause 3 of the notification substituting the proviso viz. “(4) (a) join the service of the bank on or after the notified date and on or before the 31st day of March, 2010;” for sub-regulation 4 was made for excluding employees who joined the service of the bank after 31.03.2010 from the Pension Scheme. Sub-regulation 4 stood as “join the service of the bank on or after the notified date” and the same was substituted as sub regulation (4) (a). The numbering of the sub regulations in regulation 3 became irregular and the addition of the words “and on or before the 31st day of March, 2010;” was for excluding employees who joined service after 31.03.2010 from the Pension Scheme, which was inconsistent with the Pension Scheme. The amendment is void vide sections 19 (1) and 19(4) of the Banking Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings) Act, 1970.
5. On the basis of the Settlement/ Joint Note dated 27.04.2010 which infringed the Pension Regulations, the bank had excluded employees who joined service after 31.03.2010 by placing them in the New Pension Scheme operated by the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority. This was capable of axing the Pension Scheme altogether as the contributions which are to be made to the Pension Fund by the bank in respect of employees who joined service after 31.03.2010 would not come to the Pension Fund and will reach the PFRDA [Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority] which is part of the Government. This apart, the amendment would, in the long run result in the Pension Fund which is the money, property and deferred wages of employees becoming the property or equity of the bank when employees who joined service on or before 31.03.2010 and their families vanish. It was a clever way of making the owed funds of the bank their own property, an act that can attract the wrath of section 405 and 409 of the Indian Penal Code for breach of trust by public servant and by banker.
6. The notification had no clause 3 (a). The number was missing. Vide clause 3 (b), new sub regulations 11 to 14 were inserted in regualtion 3. This was for legalising the unlawful contributions raised from employees/retired employees and families of deceased employees made to the Pension Fund in the year 2010 in infringement of the statutory Pension Regulations. As per the amendment, the subjects of the Pension Regulations do not have to make the contributions in terms of the pre-existing sub regulations and they have to make the contributions in terms of the new sub regulation 11 to 14. The new sub regulations were in clash with sub regulation 3 (10), according to which the bank can collect from the retied employees and family of deceased employees only the CPF paid at the time of retirement along with interest till date of its refund or till 01.04.1995, whichever is earlier, sub regulation 5 (3) per which the Bank is the sole contributor to the Pension Fund, regulation 7 in terms of which the bank can collect to the Pension Fund only the components listed in it, which exclude a contribution other than the surrender/refund of CPF from employees/retired employees and family of deceased employees. The new sub regulations 11 to 14 are void in law according to sections 19(1) and 19(4) of the Act 5 of 1970.
7. The clause 8 (b) of the notification seeks to insert a new proviso viz. “Provided that pension including family pension to those who opted to join the Bank Employees’ Pension Scheme on or after the 27th April, 2010 shall be payable with effect from the 27th November, 2009” in sub regulation 3 of regulation 52. The proviso relating to the date of commencement of pension to a section of employees who joined pension scheme after 27.04.2010 was inserted in sub regulation where the pre-existing proviso related to the date of cessation of pension to all employees making the regulation preposterous to read as “a pension including family pension shall be payable for the day on which its recipient die; provided that pension including family pension to those who opted to join the Bank Employees’ Pension Scheme on or after the 27th April, 2010 shall be payable with effect from the 27th November, 2009”. Since both provisos cannot go together, Union Bank of India put it beneath sub regulation 3 as an unnumbered proviso in regulation 52 while some other banks like Punjab National Bank placed it as sub regulation 4 of regulation 52 notwithstanding that in terms of the notification it has to be placed in regulation 3 of regulation 52. The new proviso sought to be inserted in sub regulation 3 of regualtion 52 is inconsistent with sub regulation 52 (1) which provides for payment of pension from the date following the date on which the employee retires and is hence void in terms of sections 19(1) and 19(4) of the Act 5 of 1970.
8. The payment of pension from 27.11.2009 to those who joined the Pension Scheme after 27.04.2010 (the date of the Settlement /Joint Note), was not depriving pension even for a single day to the serving employees and was depriving pension/family pension for periods varying from 26 days to 14 years to retired employees and families of deceased employees notwithstanding that all of them are similar subjects of the Pension Regulations. This was a discrimination with no parallel meted out through the Settlement/Joint Note dated 27.04.2010 and clause 8 (b) of the notification was for legalising the colossal discrimination.
9. An astonishing part in the notification is that clause 1 (2) of it viz. “Save as otherwise expressly provided in these regulations, they shall come into force on the date of their publication in the Official Gazette” affirms that the three amendments cited supra can come into force only on 06.11.2017, the date of the notification and exposes the bank as guilty in having excluded the employees who joined service after 31.03.2010 from the Pension Scheme, in having raised the contributions and in denying pension to retired employees/family of employees from the date following the date of retirement seven years back on the basis of the Settlement/Joint Note dated 27.04.2010. The tricky nature of the amendments is apparent from the fact that nothing remains to be done henceforth on their basis and they are made to give legs to the wrongs done long back in the year 2010.
10. The notification is ending with an explanatory memorandum affirming that the interest of no person shall be adversely affected by the retrospective effect to the amendments. In terms of this averment, it becomes essential that clause 3, 3 (b) and 8 (b) of the notification stated supra, which are detrimental to the subjects of the Pension Regulations, shall not be applicable to anyone. This makes it necessary that the bank shall bring back employees who joined service after 31.03.2010 from the New Pension Scheme to its own Pension Scheme, refund the contributions levied to the Pension Fund for granting option to those concerned and also pay pension from the date following the date of retirement to those who were denied it.
11. The notification also amended regulation 28 of the Pension Regulations on Superannuation Pension vide clause 4 of it by inserting a new proviso viz. “Provided further that employees who ceased to be in service on or after the 29th September, 1995 on account of voluntary retirement before attaining the age of superannuation but after rendering service for a minimum period of 15 years in accordance with the Scheme framed in this regard by the Board with the approval of the Government, shall be entitled to join the Pension Fund, subject to the compliance of the terms and conditions mentioned in the Scheme”. In terms of his amendment, all employees who exited service through its Voluntary Retirement Scheme any time after 29.09.1995 complying with the terms of the Scheme became entitled to get superannuation pension from the date following the date of their retirement. But some employees who retired through Voluntary Retirement Scheme are not paid pension from the date of their retirement.
12. Sub regulation 1 of regulation which stood as “Except in the case of an employee to whom the provisions of regulation 43 and regulation 46 apply, a pension other than family pension shall become payable from the date following the date on which an employee retires” was substituted
through clause 8 (a) of the notification by a new proviso viz. “(1) Except in the case of an employee to whom the provisions of regulation 34 or regulation 46 apply, a pension other than family pension shall become payable from the date following the date on which an employee retires.”
Regulation 34 relates to Payment of pension or family pension in respect of employees who retired or died between 1.1.1986 to 31.10.1993 and regulation 46 relates to payment of Provisional Pension to employees against whom disciplinary proceedings are incomplete. Both the provisions being inapplicable to any employee who retired on superannuation or through voluntary retirement, all employees retired after the inception of the Pension Scheme are entitled to pension from the date following their date of retirement. It is sufficient that inapplicability to regulation 34 alone is enough to get pension from the date following the date of retirement in terms of this amendment.
My intention in bringing the aforesaid facts to the notice of the venerable judges is to ensure that justice does not get miscarried due to the dirty tricks latent in the legislation.
With Respectful Regards, I remain.
C N VENUGOPALAN
PS: Bank employees are the people who toil hard for translating all the financial policies of the government. Though their salary and perquisites are to be paid by the government, they are met out of the profits they make in banks. Their pension is also payable out of their deferred wages previously payable as a component of salary payable pursuant to EPF Act till the advent of the Pension Scheme and thereafter to the Pension Fund. In not paying them the statutorily defined pension, the bank pensioners are getting plundered in their old age.
A copy of this communication is sent to the Secretary (Banking), Government of India, who sanctioned the preposterous and prohibited amendments to the Pension Regulations, so that he can undo the wrongs done to the beneficiaries of the Pension Scheme by advising the banks to make payment of the benefits vested with the beneficiaries as it will go a long way in eliminating a large number of writ petitions choked with the Courts across the country and save the precious time and resources of various Courts.
FIAT JUSTITIA RUAT CAELUM सत्यमेव जयते FIAT JUSTITIA RUAT CAELUM
✴️UNQUOTE✴️