Calcutta High Court (Appellete Side)
Sabdarnagar Education And Welfare ... vs Union Of India & Ors on 29 July, 2024
Author: Arindam Mukherjee
Bench: Arindam Mukherjee
29.07.2024 IN THE HIGH COURT AT CALCUTTA
Sl. No.10 CONSTITUTIONAL WRIT JURISDICTION
(PP) APPELLATE SIDE
WPA 14196 of 2024
Sabdarnagar Education and Welfare Society & Ors.
Vs.
Union of India & Ors.
Mr. Arunava Ghosh,
Mr. Soumya Majumder,
Mr. Dwaipayan Sengupta,
Ms. Sanjukta Dutta,
Mr. Kinnor Ghosh
....for the petitioners.
Mr. Satyendra Agarwal,
Mr. Goutam Malik
....for the respondent no.3.
Mr. Anup Kanti Poddar Mr. Ayan Poddar, Ms. Khusboo Ruia ....for the respondent no.6.
Affidavit of service filed in Court today is taken on record.
The petitioners are retired employees of Airports Authority of India (in short, AAI). Initially, all of them joined as employees in Director General of Civil Aviation (in short, DGCA). Before the petitioners completed the years of pensionable service, the petitioners were transferred to National Airports Authority (NAI) which subsequently became AAI. During the tenure with DGCA, the petitioners were under the Contributory Provident Fund (CPF) scheme. The employer deducted the employees' contribution and deposited the same with the employer's 2 contribution. Although, during the tenure in DGCA the employees in other organizations were given the option to opt between CPF and General Provident Fund (GPF), but no opportunity to opt was granted to the petitioners. Sometimes around in the year 2007- 2008, AAI came under the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) in view of the provisions of Employees Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952 (in short EPF & MP Act). However, no deduction treating the petitioners to be governed by the CPF scheme as they were while working with DGCA was started even after they came under the regime of EPFO while working in AAI. The petitioners during this period were in reality under no coverage. Ultimately, this impasse was resolved sometimes in 2017 with regard to the petitioners, some of whom had retired by that time by treating the petitioners as employees under the GPF scheme and to receive government pension subject to refund of the retiral benefits and other amounts that may have been received from EPFO. The government pension was started from 2019.
The petitioners say that in 2024 the petitioners received an information that in a case where the payment of pension has commenced under the pension scheme framed in terms of the provisions of 3 the 1952 Act, the same cannot be discontinued. This has created an uncertainty amongst the employees of AAI like the petitioners. The petitioners are apprehending that if the pension from EPFO is reinstated, then the government pension which the petitioners are receiving either on having refunded the benefits received from the EPFO or on the undertaking of returning the same will be stopped as an employee cannot get pension from two sources for the same period.
On behalf of AAI, it is submitted that in view of the decision taken at the highest level of the Ministry, the employees of AAI were given the government pension in lieu of benefits and the pension received from EPFO. However, as the EPFO has taken a stand that pension through EPFO having once started cannot be discontinued, the AAI has also been placed in an anomalous state. AAI has a limited decision making power in a case like this as it functions under the direction of the concerned Ministry. AAI have accepted the proposal to pay their employees the government pension as per ministerial decision. The decision of EPFO also may compel them to stop the government pension to its retired employees like the petitioners.
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On behalf of EPFO, it is submitted that they intend to file an affidavit to bring forth their stand.
The retiral benefits to a retired employee is the only source of security to him/her and his/her family. Pension is a retiral benefit which has been long clarified as a right and not a bounty by the Hon'ble Supreme Court.
In such a situation, due to inter se dispute between AAI, the Ministry of Civil Aviation and EPFO, the subsisting position cannot be altered at the whims of administrative decision.
In the aforesaid facts and circumstances, the respondents and each one of them, their men, agents and aides are restrained from changing the status quo as on date that is the retired employees of AAI will continue to receive government pension on foregoing their benefits they are entitled to receive from EPFO until further orders.
The matter requires further scrutiny which is possible only after EPFO and AAI are given an opportunity to disclose their stand by filing separate reports in the form of an affidavit dealing with the main points and providing the relevant dates for adjudicating the issues raised by the petitioners.
Let such reports be filed by 20th August, 2024. 5 Let this matter appear in the combined monthly list of September, 2024.
The petitioners will be at liberty to file exception on or before the matter is taken up, however, with an advance copy to the respondents.
(Arindam Mukherjee, J.)