SANS JUSTICE

Press Reluctant Support Bank Employees - The letter did not find a place in the media

The Editor ,
Business Line
Sir,
SANS JUSTICE


Our Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, a Great Visionary of our times aspires to deliver justice, legal and socio economic to the people. He stresses the need for making litigation affordable and to minimize the number of pending cases in courts pointing out that justice delayed is justice denied. The dream gets axed taking things to nadir of ethics when governance itself paves way to huge influx of litigation when the captain aims to avoid it. The fabric of social justice and substantive law gets injured, leaving socio economic justice a mere mirage when MOF is seen uncaring the vision of the PM . Our magnificent Constitution gets a rattle through utter disregard to fundamental rights and Directive Principles of state policy.

The recently inked wage pact and extension of fresh Pension Option in the Banking Industry inflicts a major shock to the fundamentals of the Constitution and precipitates a lot to be legally examined and cleared. Arbitrary and illogic fixation of the date for commencement of Pension which should in all fairness commence from the date of retirement, that too at the behest of the Finance Minister who has taken oath in the name of the Constitution to treat people of all manner alike, absolutely lacks propriety. When identical people are paid Pension from the date of their retirement under one and the same Pension Regulations, denial of Pension to the new lot of retirees up to the arbitrarily fixed date of 27 November, 2009 and subjecting them to a levy of 56 percent of the CPF received at the time of retirement in the case of the retired and a recovery of 2.8 times the November 2009 Pay in the case of those presently in employment are opposed to natural justice and substantive law. The Finance Minister whose assent to fix the date 27 November, 2009 for Pension placed himself on Achilles' heels losing the ground below by breaching the oath of office taken while swearing in. The fundamental question is whether the country needs to snatch away the pittance payable as Pension to the retired bank employees to run the governance. Seasoned politicians with adequate legal background and years of rich experience becoming myopically blind to the legal sanctity is creates a sorry state of affairs.

The penalty imposed on the working and retired evidently shows that Bank Unions had to traverse through the dotted lines of IBA surrendering largely the cardinal right of the bank employee for inking the agreement. The 17.5 percent pay hike in the industry for the six days working bank employee in relation to the 40 percent hike to five days working government employees testifies it further. The negotiating team representing workmen and officers were not at all authorized by the retired to surrender a loin portion of the pension dues to them and for subjecting them to the 56 percent levy. Recovery of the CPF with 6 percent simple interest from those who retired on or after 01 01 1986 while giving them entry when the scheme of Pension was commissioned is a well quoted precedence which IBA could have followed here in all fairness. One who retired eight years back who has received a lesser amount of CPF say Rs.3.00 lakhs and one who retired recently receiving Rs.7.00 lakhs are to pay a uniform rate of 156 percent of the payment which can not be reconciled in any way and proves that this banking equation is entirely wrong with no legal backing.

The actuaries appointed by IBA had projected a deficit of Rs.6,000 Crores in Pension Fund for which a sharing formula of 70:30 was evolved. The envisaged recovery from the retired itself will be in the range of Rs.5.00 lakhs which would total Rs. 3250 Crores for 65000 already retired. Banks thus collect from them Rs.3,250 Crores against Rs.1,800 Crores agreed upon by way of sharing, flouting the very sharing formula through another banking equation albeit the fact that recovery itself is illegal.

Payment of three retirement benefits viz. Gratuity, Pension, CPF in SBI and only two benefits ( Gratuity, Pension/CPF) in Associate Banks and other state owned Public Sector Banks is also a gross violation of the Constitutional guarantees to the Bank employees. It is only recently that some leaders have come to know and talk about dictums like "Equal Pay for Equal Work" to transform themselves into the "old wine in new bottle" for sticking to their seats and to create new pastures for themselves. Leaders while celebrating the wage agreement as a Historic one in a grand gala manner show that they lack of conscience absolutely to have a prick on it.

IBA, the so claimed progressive association of the bankers was extremely unreasonable and meted out gross injustice missing to them the opportunity to wash away its past sins once for all. They have precipitated fresh issues to be settled in Courts by adding to the huge bundle of petitions. They have proved to be the totally unfit to settle things in time by prolonging the wage related issues for over 30 months IBA, MOF and Unions would once again review the entire agreement and remove the gross irregularities in a scientific way so as not to put the judiciary in a fix through abundant number of petitions.

Thanking You,


Yours faithfully,


C N Venugopalan Ex-Manager, Union Bank of India, Nandanam, Kesari Junction, N Paravoor, Kerala – 683 513 0484 2447994, 9447747994