Vadlamani Srinivasarao:Dear Friends, Greetings and wishes to all.
As you are all well aware the Court Vacation commences from 23 May2022 & till 09 July 2022 remain Closed.
Wish to bring to your kind information that the EPFO advocate Mr.Siddarth has issued a letter to Supreme Court Registry to restore the pension case on priority and be posted for early hearing in view of the following:
1. It is mentioned that grave prejudice is caused to the low-waged employees of the country & there is extraordinary adverse financial impact on the pension fund.
2. In fact the SC itself had ordered for posting of the case in first week of March-22.
It is further brought to your kind attention that NCR Advocate Mr.Prushotham Sharma Tripathi had also issued a letter to SC Registry objecting to the request of EPFO “not to post” our case for early hearing, in view of the following ::-
1. The Supreme Court orders for enforcement on various judgments is pending or under challenge.
2. The contempt petitions finalized by SC based on EPFO’s submission is still pending.
3. The SC ordered that
(a) SLP against Kerala HC order dated 12-10-2018,
(b) SLP against Delhi HC in BKNK case dated 22-05-2019, 16-12-2019 and
(c) the judgment dated 28.08.2019 of the Rajasthan HC may all be tagged together and posted for hearing.
4. Implementation of Contempt petition is still pending on judgment dated 04-10-2016.
In the light of these developments our Retiree Pensioners are confused and in this context it is relevant to state that the considered view of our Legal Experts and Advocates culled out from allover India is that “postponement “ of hearing up to November 2022 is a better or good option.(in other words , it is rather better to await for the retirement of Justice UU.Lalith-- since it is felt that he is more inclined on EPFO's side
Another school of thought is however in favour of early hearing
(i) because of the growing mortality rate of our pensioners and (ii) specially due to the economic issues faced in maintaining family with the present meager pension amount.
Friends, whatever may be the reasons, everything is rest with Supreme Court and Government side. As usual we have to wait with crossed fingers.
In the mean time there is a proposal from our learned friend Mr.AV.Kumar (of SPIC and Technip company retirees leader and Joint Secretary in JAC) that the financial related submissions with the Supreme Court by all other Respondents is not sufficient to challenge the exorbitant averments (lies) of the EPFO in their affidavit and among them the contention that as Rs.15, 29 lakh Crores being incurred for pension payment is vehemently to be contested and therefore our friend Mr.AV.Kumar is intending to file an “Intervention Petition” and to implead in Supreme Court to contest the EPFO’s utter lies.
However, the well-thought out desire of our friend is discussed among our JAC and the pros and cons are as below:
1. All the JAC and other petitioner have won the case and a judgment is in our favour. The EPFO however filed a Writ Appeal and the same is pending in Madras High Court and is delayed due to Covid and other unfortunate reasons.
2. When our case is pending in HC, whether filing an Intervening petition in SC is advisable or not ;
3. Instead, Why not we approach the existing Petitioners SC to file the same averments in SC through their Advocates to save considerable legal expenses and avoid facing any adverse result in SC;
4. With due regards to our friend’s suggestion and without any prejudice to his stand-point of view, it may be mentioned that all these averments (Drafted by Mr.AV.Kumar) were already listed and forwarded to our Advocate Mr.Sundaram Iyer and AOR Mr.Vinayagam Balan and same included in the affidavit in SC and Circulated to all Senior Advocates and AORs for possible effective arguments to specially challenge EPFO on finance grounds.
5. More over all our Advocates and legal experts are not inclined towards filing anything in Supreme Court at the present juncture, since the main case is at its Final stage.
In the light of the above, it was decided to convene JAC General Body meeting of all stakeholders for amicable solution in this matter.
Accordingly Secretary Mr.Ramanan has fixed the meeting on 21-05-2022 at T. Nagar Club.
In the mean time, however it is understood that filing of “Intervening Petition” has been finalized by concerned (SPIC &TECNIP Retirees) and being handled by BHEL Advocate Mr.Anathapathamanaban in Supreme Court as informed by Mr.Ramanan Secretary (JAC) (Total expenses around 10 Lakhs).
Dear friends wish to remind you all that the formation of a Joint Committee (including various unions) was a difficult task and somehow we managed its function for an objective collectively all these years
The JAC is formed in the year 2017 and Registered during 2018 with 12 organisations and now with consist of 62 organisations and continuing our journey successfully.
It is relevant to point out that the 90 Writ Petitions filed in Madras High Court on various dates by different organisations were accumulated and then tagged by JAC. The struggle taken to prepare the affidavits, gathering required documents and other evidences were wonderfully tackled by hard work of legal experts and leaders and with the help of Mr.Parveen Kohli.
We had won the case successfully and now waiting for the judgment in Writ Appeal filed by EPFO. No doubt we are wining the Writ Appeal very soon. For the delay, we have to blame only Covid.
We are anxiously waiting for the Judgments both that of Supreme Court as well as in Madras High Court in our favour soon.
Further it may be noted that though we are not a Party in Supreme Court however the decisions of SC will be binding on us.
We are (JAC) not a party for filing anything in Supreme Court at Present. Nevertheless if the Verdict of the SC is in our favour, then we can consider our share to the court expenses. Your views in this regard are solicited.
EPS 95 Higher Pension Cases Latest News:
a) One new W.P.No.000318 of 2022 Nalin Mohan Mathur U.P Vs UOI is filed in SC and is posted for hearing on 12-07-2022 along with other pending related matters.
b) From our Advocate Mr.Sundaram Iyer it is learnt that the case is well explained to all the Senior Advocates and concerned AORs with supportive documents. They are waiting for the hearing and for argument to finalise the case in our favour.
c) The National Agitation Committee (NAC) is on continues agitations all over India, the Hunger Strike agitation is going on for the past 3 years and inviting the Government’s attention towards Minimum pension, the latest message is that a committee formed to study the NAC demands and the pending court cases for equalizing the pension without vast disparity difference between the pensioners. (News from NAC)
Friends we are doing our level best to achieve the enhanced Pension matter.Unnatural delay was the cause in our case.We convey our sincere salute to the departed pensioner friends.
JOINTLY WE WILL FIGHT AND DEFINITELY WE WILL WIN
Thanks to all
Friends, am in USA, New Jersey with my Grand Children I will be back in September.
You can call me on WhatsApp in my number between 5.00PM and 12.30 AM from India.
Friendly Yours
G.Murugaiyan
President, JAC.
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