Respected Prime Minister Sri Narendra Modi
With due regards, I like to bring to your notice that
Total number of cases filed by Officers/award staff of Union Bank and other public sector banks is around 6000 all over India. Many of them are in process of hearing and many already decided in favour of petitioner staff. Banks in some cases have filed appeal in High courts of different states. In case of one Gramin bank, even Supreme Court has dismissed appeal of the Bank. It is to be noted here that not a single PSU bank or RRB has won the case filed by bank staff.
There are more than 400 retirees of RMGB to whom payment has already been made after dismissal of appeal by Supreme Court of India against Jabalpur High Court decision by Bank.
There are so many cases of Saptgiri Gramin bank in whose cases 50% of the award amount is released by Hyderabad High Court.
Recently there was decision of Bilaspur HC bench of Mumbai HC clearly mentioned Sec 4(5) of PG Act is Non obstante clause with statutory protection of Sec 14 of PG Act 1972.
There are other so many decisions from other High Courts also in favour of aggrieved bank staff.
I am attaching orders of Jabalpur Hugh court and that of Supreme Court for your kind perusal.
I am unable to understand why Ministry of Finance (MOF) has been maintaining silence on increasing number of cases filed against each bank .
Gratuity act is central act and ALC/DLC/RLC all come under the jurisdiction of Ministry of Labour and Employment (MOLE) . All orders passed by ALC or RLC are as good as orders of Ministry of Labour and Employment .
It is astonishing that tousands of cases have been filed by bank staff all over the country and still MOF is silent. Banks are wasting money in litigation and there is none to stop it.
I am unable to understand what for regulating agencies like RBI, MOF, MOLE, DFS are.
Are bank management free to spend unlimited money in filing appeal after appeal in similar cases?
It is duty of Labour Minister to place the matter with Ministry of Finance or RBI and they together should go deep into intricacies of the matter and details of court cases and orders and then once for all decide what is justified and what is not. By this action government can save precious time, money and manpower energy of Banks , MOF, MOLE as well as that of ALC/RLC.
Are they all waiting mass agitation like what is happening against three acts on farmers, or like mass agitation which took place for OROP (one rank one pension) by retired armed forces.
Please note that bank staff and retirees associations have been writing to all concerned for pension updating, gratuity enhancement date uniformity and equality, for years and decades .
Why government is indifferent to their grievances?
Why government is allowing discrimination with bank employees despite relentless appeal made by old retirees of Banks?
Only God knows.
I have submitted before you, before head of my bank and before MOF that once an order is passed by High court, it has to be applied to all similarly situated persons.
Please for God sake, avoid spending good money in fighting cases against retirees who served the organization for decades and who are now constrained to pray in court for justified payment under Gratuity Act.
Latest report published in reputed newspaper says as under
The inability of government departments and PSUs to take advantage of arbitration route under the law has resulted in their involvement in a large number of court cases, making the government biggest litigant in the country.
According to the latest data, nearly thirty million court cases are pending in lower judiciary and more than 4 million cases are pending in high courts across the country. According to an assessment conducted by the department of justice in 2017, nearly half of the cases were related to government departments and PSUs. These were related to service matters, loan defaults, and dispute with private parties among other issues.
A large number of cases were related to two different branches of the government being pitted against each other in courts. The government’s effort to resolve these cases to reduce the burden on judiciary does not seem to be succeeding despite a clarion call by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The fear of prosecution under the prevention of anti-corruption law is holding back top public sector officials from resolving these cases through alternative dispute resolution mechanism such as mediation and arbitration, say legal experts.
What is to be noted here is that when pay and allowances of bank employees are decided by Bipartite settlement , bank cannot reduce or increase anyone's pay and allowances at its own. This is as per principle of equity before law.
Similarly when central government pass an act on gratuity, any state or any bank or any PSU cannot reduce or restrain benefit available to any staff at its own.
They may increase benefits to retirees for their all employees, not for one or two as per their whims and fancies.
When one or more staff are aggrieved by an act or on interpretation of act and they individually or jointly approach court of law for modification, clarification, right interpretation or for other issues and when Court accept it and gives order for proper change in act or proper interpretation of law or for modification and passes such order in favour of aggrieved petitioner ,such order will be and must be uniformly applicable on every employee guided by the act. It is not necessary that each employee will have to file a case separately for justice.
Gratuity rules are subjected to scrutiny at various levels and many ALC /RLC / DLC have asked bank to pay higher amount of gratuity .Some cases are pending in High court also on related issues.
In such case bank cannot say that only staff who approached court is entitled the benefit of court order. Bank cannot discriminate. Bank should not insist that every employee should approach court for justice and if they do so it is against natural justice and against the spirit of Constitutional right of uniformity of law and and principle of equality before law.
Bank being a government bank , it's CEO or CMD cannot deny equality and justice to its subordinate employees when they are governed by same act and same rules and same court order.
If a particular CEO of a bank is interested to increase litigation only to keep his ego high and crush retired staff by his enormous power taking advantage of delaying culture in judiciary, retirees should file a case in upper court or pray for justice in office of our respected Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi and office of learned Finance Minister.
There are many rulings from Supreme Court also where any office has not act acted in accordance with law and applied his whims whimsical attitude in wrong interpretation of law and against court rulings.
I still hope bank will reconsider it's response or else file an appeal against aforesaid order in High Court which reportedly has not been filed till date as per my information.
I hope government will look into the matter seriously because it is a matter of general nature, concerned with lakhs of bank retirees. It is sin for a bank to file case after case and appeal after appeal till retirees die .
Yours faithfully
Danendra Jain
21.01.2021
If you look into past orders passed by High courts and Supreme Court you will observe that any employer cannot deny benefitted to similarly situated persons only because he or she has not filed cases in court for justice.
Here in this case, the claim of the Petitioners are that they are entitled to be treated like similarly placed persons, who are the Petitioners before the Kerala High Court and who are paid the recovered amount. In effect, the contention of the Petitioners is that they shall be treated equally and if any discrimination is made on the ground that Petitioners 1 to 16 have received Voluntary Retirement Scheme benefits and therefore they are not entitled to get the recovered amount, the same will be violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India.
In yet another decision reported in Govind Ram Purohit v. Jagjiwan Chandra, 1999 SCC (L&S) 788, in para 3 the Honourable Supreme Court held thus: " 3 . It was lastly contended by the learned Counsel for the Appellants that whereas the Petition had been filed by only Respondent 1, the High Court while finally concluding the matter has given a direction to promote all those who were senior to the Appellants even though they were not parties to the petition. Once the High Court had placed a particular interpretation on the Rules, the benefit of that interpretation had to go to all those who qualified under the Seniority- cum -Merit Rule. There was no point in waiting for each and every person to file a petition. Therefore, we do not see any reason why we should entertain such a technical plea when the High Court has done substantial justice to all concerned."
From the analysis of the judgments cited above, it is beyond doubt and clear that once the point is decided in favour of a group of persons, there is no further point in waiting for each and every person to file Petition and pray for the same relief. As held by the Honourable Supreme Court, the benefit of the judgment is equally applicable to similarly placed persons to do complete and substantial justice."
The said judgment was challenged in W.A.No.956 of 2006 and the First Bench of this Court confirmed the same by order dated 30.10.2006 and the SLP (Civil) No. 6771 of 2007 filed against the said judgment was also dismissed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court on 23.04.2007.
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K.Pitchaimani : vs The Secretary To Government on 3 June, 2014
Showing the contexts in which similarly placed persons appears in the document
14. The learned counsel for the petitioner also cited a decision of the Supreme Court reported in Maharaj Krishnan Bhatt v. State of Jammu and Kashmir, (2008) 9 SCC 24, for the proposition that once a judgment had attained finality on a particular/similar issue, it could not be termed as wrong and its benefit ought to be extended to other similarly placed persons. Citing the said judgment the learned counsel contended that the earlier orders passed by this Court granting relief to similarly placed persons confirmed upto the Supreme Court and the said orders having been implemented by the Board, the petitioner cannot be discriminated in the matter of giving compassionate appointment as she is also similarly placed. In the said decision in paragraphs 19, 20 and 23 the Supreme Court held thus:
29. The above decision of the Apex Court is squarely applicable to the facts of the present case, as in this case, Mamundiraj and others, who were similarly placed like that of the workmen, were given permanent status by the management, but it was not done in the case of the workmen herein, thereby violating the provisions of Article 14 of the Constitution of India."
15. The issue i.e., to consider similarly placed persons equally if the issue is identical was considered by me in the decision reported in N.S.Balasubramanian v. Food Corporation of India, New Delhi, 2006 WLR 327 : (2006) 2 MLJ 572. Paragraphs 16 and 17 reads as follows:
From the analysis of the judgments cited above, it is beyond doubt and clear that once the point is decided in favour of a group of persons, there is no further point in waiting for each and every person to file petition and pray for the same relief. As held by the Honourable Supreme Court, the benefit of the judgment is equally applicable to similarly placed persons to do complete and substantial justice.
17. The Law Department as well as the Finance Department of the respondents/Corporation considered the similarity of the issue involved and recommended to the respondents to pay the recovered amount to the petitioners as well. Hence the denial of the said benefit to the petitioners is unreasonable and violative of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India. The decisions cited by the learned Additional Advocate General reported in State of Karnataka v. G.Halappa, AIR 1996 SC 2890 and State of Karnataka v. G.Halappa, AIR 2002 SC 2427, have no application to the facts of this case because of the submission that Circular No.13 dated 9.7.1997 was wrongly applied by the respondents while stepping up of the pay. The said contention was raised before the Kerala High Court and before the Honourable Supreme Court and the same was not accepted. Hence it is not open to the respondents to raise the said plea in this writ petition as they were parties to the proceedings before the Kerala High Court." The said decision is confirmed in W.A.No.956 of 2006 by the Division Bench by Judgment dated 30.10.2006. SLP(C)No.677 of 2007 filed against the same was also dismissed by the Supreme Court on 23.4.2007.
Sudhir Vasudeva vs M.George Ravi Shekeran on 11 July, 2012
Petition (Civil) No.889 of 2007 filed by similarly placed persons from Rajamundry, Andhra Pradesh. Ultimately, the Supreme Court ... warranting an action against the respondent. In the meantime, similarly situated persons from Rajamundry also filed Contempt Petiition (Civil
Madras High Court
Cites 12 - Cited by 0 - Full Documentbenefit ought to be extended to other similarly placed persons. Citing the said judgment the learned counsel contended that ... orders passed by this Court granting relief to similarly placed persons confirmed upto the Supreme Court and the said orders
Madras High Court
Cites 10 - Cited by 0 - Full Documentbenefit ought to be extended to other similarly placed persons. Citing the said judgment the learned counsel contended that ... orders passed by this Court granting relief to similarly placed persons confirmed upto the Supreme Court and the said orders
Madras High Court
Cites 10 - Cited by 0 - Full Documentscheme. The learned counsel also submitted that similarly placed persons appointed on temporary basis with consolidated pay after 1.4.1981 were ... year 2000, which has been given to similarly placed persons and in any event from 1.1.2006. Therefore, the order
Madras High Court
Cites 12 - Cited by 0 - Full Documentbehalf of the writ petitioner states that other similarly placed persons filed writ petition in the year 2004 and pursuant ... benefit of regularisation was granted to the other similarly placed persons who were engaged as daily wage employees, the same
Madras High Court
Cites 53 - Cited by 0 - Full Documentappearing for the writ petitioners states that the similarly placed persons were considered by the competent authority ... services of many such similarly placed persons were regularized and they were brought under the regular establishment. The writ petitioners
Madras High Court
Cites 53 - Cited by 0 - Full Documenttime scale of pay on par with other similarly placed persons in the light of the orders passed ... permanent absorption was granted to all other similarly placed persons. Therefore, paragraph No.53 of the decision of this Constitutional
Madras High Court
Cites 62 - Cited by 0 - Full Documentbehalf of the writ petitioner states that other similarly placed persons filed writ petition in the year 2004 and pursuant ... benefit of regularisation was granted to the other similarly placed persons who were engaged as daily wage employees, the same
Madras High Court
Cites 53 - Cited by 0 - Full Documentcontinuance in service beyond 30.06.2019 on par with similarly placed persons and for regularization of service in the post ... continuance in service beyond 30.06.2019 on par with similarly placed persons and for regularization of service in the post
Madras High Court
Cites 31 - Cited by 0 - Full Document
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