Petition updateUpdation of Pension to Bank Retirees/Pensioners - out of their own Pension corpus Fund -Petition to Hon'ble PM / FM
Jayaprakash NBangalore, India
Apr 23, 2017 — Date: 23.04.2017 To: Hon’ble Prime Minister of India and Finance Minister, Hon’ble Finance Minister Respected Sirs, Furtherance to our petition dated 12.12.2016 & 06.04.2017 followed by repeated pleadings submitted online by the TEAM: Jayaprakash. N, Jayaraman. N, Jayaram. V., HSN Murthy, HS Vasudeva Rao & ijayalakshmi, followed by many reminders on online http://pgportal/govt.in/pension, registered as No. 2016/0582101 dated 15.12.2016 and PMOPG/E/ 2017/ 0123160 dated 03.03.2017, 2017/0163262 dated 23.03.2017 and 2017/0171644 dated 26.03.2017 humbly requesting for sanction of: (1) Periodical updation of Pension (2) 100% DA Neutralization (3) Improvement in Family Pension (4) 2nd Option Pension to few of the remaining CRS/Dismissed etc., employees to all Bank Retirees/Pensioners at Par with employees & Pensioners under CCS Rules, 1972. Assuming that the original petition was very brief to the issue concerned and needs more explanation with decided cases of similar nature by the judiciary, we have submitted reasonably rightful and lawful justification citing vide our letter dated 06.04.2017 as an addenda to the our original petition dated 12.12.2016. But unfortunately, with imparting credence to our repeated updates, Public Grievances Cell referred all the above petitions to the IBA for clarification instead of referring to an independent, unbiased commission to know the reality of the case. What justice one can expect when IBA an unregistered voluntary organisation without responsibility and accountability is one of the joint signatory to all wage settlements of Bank employees along with UFBU, reported to have cited that the matter is subjudice and based on that, the PG portal has disposed of all the cases on such flimsy & prejudicial recommendations Bank Retirees have been time & again misled by vested interest about Bank Pension funding. Please refer Regulation 5, 6 & 7 under Chapter 11 of Bank Employees Pension Regulation Act, 1995, which read as: Regulation No.5. Constitution of the Fund: 1) The Bank shall constitute a Fund to be called the Bank (Employees') Pension Fund under an irrevocable trust from the notified date. 2) The Fund shall have for its sole purpose the provision of the payment of pension or family pension in accordance with these regulations to the employee or his family. 3) The Bank shall be a contributor to the Fund and shall ensure that sufficient sums are placed in it to enable the trustees to make due payments to beneficiaries under these regulations. Regulation No.6. Liability of the Provident Fund trust: The Provident Fund trust shall, immediately after the constitution of the Fund, transfer to the Bank (Employees') Pension Fund the accumulated balance of the contribution of the Bank to the Provident Fund and interest accrued thereon up to the date of such transfer in respect of every employee. Regulation No.7. Composition of the Fund: The Fund shall consist of the following, namely:- a) The contribution by the Bank at the rate of ten per cent per month of the pay of the employee; b) The accumulated contributions of the bank to the Provident Fund and interest accrued thereon up to the date of such transfer in respect of the employees; The above Regulations clearly states that onus of responsibility towards contribution of Pension shall be from the Banks only as a statutory obligation under Reg. 5(3) above and no where it is stated that it is subject to profitability of the Banks. Despite this, while extending 2nd option pension to employees, UFBU in collusion with IBA have entered in to unholy settlement & recovered from all the employees the additional contribution in the garb of filling deficit funding from arrears during X BPS. We request you to refund such additional contributions recovered from all the employees along with up to date interest. Is it not a breach of Regulations & trust of its members the IBA & UFBU acted upon? The pension & updation of pension etc., in case of pensioners of central/ state government, OROP, Law makers, Judiciary, Railways, etc, are against budgetary allocation which is a drain on Exchequer. Despite, the drain on exchequer periodical hefty increase in Pay & pension has been considered to the employees of Central/State, government, OROP to Armed forces, 200% increase in emoluments to law makers apart from lifelong pension for their service of just one term, hefty hike for Judiciary and recent allocation of Rs.5000 crores towards Pension under 7th Pay commission and Bank Retirees are not jealous of facilitating such benefits as above to selected categories, but their discrimination meted towards Bank Retirees is regretted for not treating them as human beings at par with them in maintaining self-respect, dignity in social life and parity in economic life. Whereas, the pension fund of the Bank Retirees is a mandatory contributions from Bank along with amount recovered during X BPS from employees due to unlawful & unholy Nexus of UFBU & IBA is reproduced hereunder for the knowledge of the concerned. PENSION FUNDS POSITION OF PSU BANKS AS ON 31.03.2016 (Amounts in Rs. Crores) Opening Balance on 01.04.15 180459.71 Service Cost 9204.62 Interest Cost 14991.78 Benefits Paid 13167.31 Actuarial Gain/Loss +13193.74 Closing Balance on 31.03.16 204682.14 Thus, the aggregate corpus fund including accumulated interest minus periodical pay offs always remains on increasing trend. And even after considering updation of pension etc., the outflow towards the same can be easily met by interest income alone leaving behind surplus always. Hence it is not a burden on exchequer. Further, the existing Pension Regulation is applicable to the employees in service up to 31.03.2010 & the existing pensioners only & those joined after 01.04.2010 are covered under different pension under NPS. Thus, the exact number of employees & pensioners are already known and determined and their number will get reduced by retirements etc, over a period whereas the fund position gets increased over a period and after certain stage, what will be the position of surplus balance fund & how it will be utilised is anybody's guess. When this is the case, when IBA cites revision is subject to the profitability of the Banks and there is no contractual relationship between Banker and Pensioners, why UFBU is not placing the actual position and challenge them lawfully quoting the decided cases in the similar matter. If IBA is correct in its stand then there should not any contractual relationship between pensioners and the Government as per CCS Rules, 1972 and how they have been accorded pension updation etc., periodically that too causing drain on exchequer. Where there is no negotiations through any trade union bodies like the employees under Central pay Commission's, their periodical revisions of pay & pensions are taken care of smoothly by the respective Bureaucrats to safe guard their brethren. Whereas, where there is negotiations of pay & pension through trade union bodies like in Bank & Insurance, the interest of employees & pensioners are always sacrificed. When IBA being an unregistered voluntary organisation without responsibility & accountability inviting UFBU and its 9 constituents for starting dialogue for wage revision under the forthcoming XI Bipartite Settlement, is it not the responsibility of the UFBU to insist that unless Retired/Pensioners Association are invited, they cannot take any stand instead they wanted to display their ornamental position of humbleness to IBA with unholy nexus to deprive & deny the lawful & justifiable rights of the Pensioners. The concept of Pension has been upheld by various judgments of the highest court of law: a) The Constitution Bench of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Deoki Nandan Prasad v.State of Bihar & Ors.1971 (2) see 330 b) [Subrata Sen vs Union of India 2010 (8) see para 14... also Ponnamal vs Union of India 1985 (3) see 235J. c) D.S. Nakara vs Union of India 1983 (1) see 305 d) In Kerala SRTC v. K.O. Varghese, (2003) 12 SCC 293 at page 301 [para 18 to 20] On analysis of series of judgments [few of them mentioned above], it well established and has been consistently held that:- i. that pension is neither a bounty nor a matter of grace depending upon the sweet will of the employer and that it creates a vested right subject to the statute, if any, holding the field, ii. that the pension is not an ex gratia payment but it is a payment for the past service rendered; and iii. It is a social-welfare measure rendering socio-economic justice to those who in the heyday of their life ceaselessly toiled for employers on an assurance that in their ripe old age they would not be left in the lurch. Now, we learnt that SBI Pensioners Association without the help of UFBU with their continued and strong struggle during last 20 years have ultimately achieved some of their demands through the in-house committee recommendation of SBI. While congratulating them on their victory, UFBU & its 9 constituents should introspect for all their earlier actions and are requested to use their wisdom and take a leaf from SBI Pensioners association and bestow your sincere, honest endeavour to safe guard your members trust. Government should introspect & justify the periodical Revision in pay & pension accorded under the CCS Rules, 1972 to above employees / pensioners periodically irrespective of satisfied service, performance & profitability against budgetary allocation which is a drain on exchequer and but the same has been deprived, denied to the Bank employees/ Pensioners under Pension Regulation 1995 though the same is paid from their own accumulated Corpus fund which is not a drain on exchequer. Apart from lodging the petition with periodical updates on http://pgportal.gov.in the same was lodged in a world plat form www.Change.Org seeking their help to take up our issues with the decision makers for early consideration on humanitarian grounds during the life time of the Pensioners before the Retires depart from this world as every issue and every person have their own expiry date. Just by sobbing & crying, nothing will come, unless the decision makers apply their mind and Heart to decide the case on humanitarian grounds. Till such time, Retirees/Pensioners are also requested to lodge as many individual petitions as possible on the same line of our original petition dated 12.12.2016 & detail reply dated 06.04.2017 on http://pgportal.gov.in and also in our ongoing struggle in the best interest of all the Bank Retirees/Pensioners login to www.Change.Org in search type Jayaprakash to find the original petition where Citizens & well-wishers can cast their support. Our sincere thanks & gratitude to 6146 people who have supported our struggle in last 4 months and the pace of support is still on for the cause of the Bank Retirees/Pensioners. It is high time, Government should analyse the above and take a suitable decision to abolish IBA and constitute separate BANK PAY COMMISSION for Serving and BANK PENSION COMMISSION for Pensioners similar to Pay Commission under CCS Rules, 1972 as the Nationalised Banks are also owned by the Govt of India as Employer. Hence in view of above, our Petition addressed to your good selves deserves to be considered on urgent basis to remedy the huge disparity and discrimination among the Pensioners, which is violetive of Article 14 and 21 of the Constitution of India with a request to issue direction to the Banks/IBA to revise the Pension at par with Central Pay Commission in favour of Bank Retirees/Pensioners, to remove prevalent disparity and discrimination and give them equal treatment without any discrimination. Thank you and hope the natural justice will be reinstated at the earliest. ---WE DEMAND BANK PAY COMMISSION - BANK PENSION COMMISSION— TEAM: Jayaprakash. N, Jayaraman. N, Jayaram. V., HSN Murthy, HS Vasudeva Rao & Vijayalakshmi, PETITIONERS:
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