EPS 95 PENSIONERS APPEAL TO ALL HON’BLE CBT MEMBERS
The court cases of Mumbai Attacks pertaining to Kasab, the Pakistani extremists, came to an end only after he was finally hanged and his file was closed. Same is the case of we 63 lakhs old and helpless EPS-1995 Pensioners.
The then Labour Minister, Mr. Bandaru Dattareya, assured the Lok Sabha on 23.03.2017 that the judgement of Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of RC Gupta shall be implemented for all the EPS-1995 Pensioners. But this has not been done. On the other hand, EPFO issued an interim order on 31.05.2017 that judgement of Supreme Case in the case of R.C. Gupta will not be implemented for employees of exempted organizations at all. What a mockery of rules & regulations, that this interim order has neither been approved by the CBT Board till date nor any CBT Member has raised this issue.
The Present Labour Minister has also assured the 16th Lok Sabha and in CBT Meeting that various cases are pending in Kerala High Court and in different other High Courts & assured that after the announcement of verdict by Kerala High Court, all the stake holder will be taken into confidence and judgement of Hon’ble Apex Court shall be implemented.
In view of these assurances, EPFO should not have filed SLP against the Kerala High Court. But they filed the SLP and the same was dismissed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court on 1st April, 2019. Then why now a Review Petition and a separate SLP by the Labour Ministry in the Supreme Court. It shows that EPFO and Labour Ministry will continue to file case after case against the old & helpless EPS-1995 Pensioners. There is lot of difference in the sayings and doings of Labour Minister/EPFO and they are not honouring their commitments given on the floor of the August House i.e. the so called Temple of Democracy.
We, 62,000 pensioners filed a CWP Civil No. 1134/2018 in the Apex Court in Sept., 2018. After filing this case, approx. 30 odd Pensioners have expired and this fact has also been brought to the notice of Hon’ble Supreme Court. If EPFO and Labour Ministry will continue their bad tactics to file case after case against the EPS-95 Pensioners, then that day is also not far off when the remaining Pensioners will also be not alive to get higher Pension. It makes no difference to neither EPFO nor the Labour Ministry as hefty fees of Advocates and TA/DA/incidentals to the officials are being met from the corpus of PF Fund.
The version of the Govt. in the CBT Meetings is totally wrong that if enhanced Pension is given then this EPS-95 will collapse. By bringing GSR 609E, the Government itself tried to destroy this EPS-95 Scheme. According to this amendment, employee whose salary will be more than Rs.15,000 p.m after 01.09.2014, is not eligible to become a member of EPS-95 Scheme. When new members will not be enrolled and old members will continue to get pension, then this scheme will automatically collapse. The hon’ble Kerala High Court has set aside GSR 609 (E) on 12.10.2018 and the Hon’ble Supreme Court has dismissed the SLP of EPFO on 01.04.2019. As a result, this GSR is not on statute book as on date. Still the EPFO is citing the provisions of this GSR which is non existent in other cases and to the pensioners to deny their legitimate due. The petitioners in Kerala High Court and even in other courts have been given the benefit of pension on higher wages but their collegues in even the same organisations have been denied.
I hope it is high time for your goodself to ask the government or the EPFO that after dismissal of EPFO's SLP date 1/4/19 by the Hon'ble Supreme Court, whether GSR 609(E) is not applicable on in Kerala that also in the case of petitioner but is applicable in the rest of the country. Is not this mockery of law?
During Question Hour in the current Lok Sabha on 24th June, 2019, Hon’ble Labour Minister told the August House that 39 cases are pending in the Supreme Court and 733 cases are pending in different High Courts in the country regarding EPS-95. We want to know from the Labour Minister, who is responsible for these cases? The answer is only the EPFO and the Government of the day. On the one hand, the Courts are under pressure because of high pendency and the EPFO and Governemnt of India, by not honoring the judgment of the hon’ble Supreme Court is wasting time and money of the hon’ble Courts as well as poor pensioners.
The matter would have ended if the Govt. had not filed the SLP against the judgement of Kerala High Court. Then again Review Petition vide diary No. 16281/2019 has been filed by the EPFO against the dismissal of SLP. Matter does not end here, what is the justification of filing a SLP by the Labour Ministry against an order of the High Court which has already been upheld by the hon’ble Supreme Court. If today, Government withdraws both the pending cases i.e. Revision Petition and SLP, all the pending cases will come to an end automatically.
The main question in the mind of pensioners is whether they have voted for Modi Ji to see this day?
We, poor pensioners humbly request all of you to reject the interim order dated 31.05.2017 of EPFO and request the Government to withdraw both the Review Petition vide diary No. 16281/2019 as well as SLP vide diary No. 11023/2019. Further, we would also like to bring to your kind notice that it is wrong that EPFO has no funds to pay the higher pension under EPS-95. As per the information gathered through various RTIs, EPFO has a surplus of more than Rs.47,000 Crores, which also belongs to all of us i.e. the Provident Fund Subscribers.
In the end, we the old aged Pensioners request you that the judgements of Hon’ble Kerala High Court and Hon’ble Supreme Court, which are in our favour, may please be got implemented so that we can also lead a respectable and dignified old age. We shall be indebted to you for this act of kindness. WE are quite hopeful that better sense will prevail and our genuine demand for higher pension under EPS-1995 will be acceded to by honouring the judgements of nos of High Courts including Kerala High Court and Hon’ble Supreme Court of India.
May God bless you all.
Thanks and Regards,
Sincerely Yours,
Khem Singh Abrol
President,
Retired employees NFL Association,
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1 Comments
We are all private employees. At first Govt are only enjoying with our money but not giving actual pension. After retirement when Govt Employee getting pension other than high Paid Pf and gratuity, why we will suffer. Is our money for your enjoyment purpose ? Better return all money to employees account with interest and stop drama only paying 2000 per month. This is enough.
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