Govt assures 650 petitioners: Decades-long fight for pension benefits resolved at special Lok Adalat session

The government informed that it has readied 38 Pension Payment Orders (PPOs), ready for immediate disbursal. Forty other PPOs would be readied within three days and for the remaining, in-principle approval has been given and the PPOs will be issued within a period of six weeks, said an advocate representing a few petitioners.

According to Justice RM Chhaya, member of the mediation monitoring committee at the HC and executive chairman of the Gujarat State Legal Services Authority (GSLSA), the disbursals are going to cost the state exchequer an estimated Rs 500 crore.

Nigam, however, remained hassled even after the Gujarat government’s submission. She said, “My husband (a government employee eligible for the pensionary benefits) died of diabetes four years ago. If the majority has to still wait for the PPOs, why was everyone called today?”

On May 6, a division bench of the HC had, in contempt pleas filed by the petitioners-retirees for non-compliance of earlier court orders directing the state government for extension of pensionary benefits, referred that the issue is resolved through a special Lok Adalat session. The order had noted that the petitioners are “in the evening of their life” and to this effect, the court had requested the advocate general to ensure payment of revised pension to all such persons who are entitled to the same as per earlier orders of the court.

The retired government employees, many of them with walkers or with help of relatives, came from districts as far as Junagadh, Bhavnagar, Rajkot, Vadodara and a majority from Ahmedabad.

Mehru Bamansha Medora (77) retired in 2008 from LD Arts College of Gujarat University as teaching staff. Soon after the state’s submission, she was seen rushing from the courtroom to GSLSA, where the beneficiaries and petitioners had to line up to get their PPOs or to have their documents verified for further processing. On the third floor of the GSLSA building at the Gujarat HC premises, three government officials assisted GSLSA officials in issuing the PPOs even as the beneficiaries remained anxious.

For the nearly 650 teaching and non-teaching staff of various universities and institutions across Gujarat, the Lok Adalat held provided an impetus to fight for pension pending for at least a decade for some, and for several others, nearly two decades or more.

In October 1984 and September 1988, government resolutions had allowed teaching and non-teaching staff of universities under the education department to switch from Contributory Provident Fund (CPF) to General Provident Fund (GPF), to be applicable retrospectively from 1982. This came after employees faced issues in pay-offs with respect to CPF wherein they were incurring a loss in compounded interest owing to delay in payments. The employees were given a period of three weeks for exercising the option, but several missed out owing to communication gaps and vacations in these universities and institutions.

In 2005, the state government informed that because of “financial constraints”, the state government will not be able to shoulder the burden of extending pensionary benefits under GPF. The employees argued that those recruited on or after April 1982 will be automatically governed by GPF and such staff will not be allowed to opt for CPF.
Several rounds of litigation later, at the Gujarat HC and Supreme Court as well, which upheld the petitioners’ right to GPF and the state’s obligation to extend its benefits, the employees continued to make the rounds of courts for their due but to no avail.

Before the state’s submission to the Lok Adalat court, the elderly petitioners remained nervous and were worried the Lok Adalat throwing a new obstacle, unsure if the state will agree to extend the pensionary benefits. However, after the state’s submission, they broke into joyous handshakes and hugs at Court Number 1 where the proceedings took place.

Vipul Patel (50), whose father was the head of the Chemistry department at Sir PP Institute of Science at Bhavnagar, retired in 2002 and died in 2018 at the age of 78 years. “My mother and I have been continuing the fight since. We were only informed that there’s a Lok Adalat and we have to get our documents. So we got the original documents of his joining in 1962 and other such documents. The papers crumble when you turn the pages. Of the 650 petitioners or so, at least 150 of them must have died by now.”

Meanwhile, Ujjwal Dholakia, whose father HH Dholakia used to teach at Sir PP Institute of Science, says he drove down his father along with two others on Saturday morning, from Bhavnagar to Ahmedabad for the Lok Adalat session. “My father is hard of hearing. There was another who couldn’t sit, so throughout the journey, he was lying down on the seat,” said Ujjwal.