The Hindu Business Line : <I>Les Miserables </I>

Among the middle-class senior citizens there are three kinds of retirees. Those who retired from government service or organisations with similar terminal benefits, those who retired with provident funds to which the employers also contributed, and those without either of these advantages. The latter two quite often envy, mostly without malice, the good fortune of government pensioners, as these worthies enjoy a steadily rising compensation long after they have stopped working.

They wonder aloud how former government servants sometimes get pensions far higher than their emoluments at retirement. The envious can relax now. The good days seem to be over for previous generations of government employees. Recent decisions from the highest in the government and judicial forums have succeeded in eroding the confidence of senior government pensioners.

Now they may feel wretched at not having had the foresight to build a sizeable nest-egg by hook or by crook, needing to depend, instead, on the steady income from guaranteed parity of pension with juniors, particularly after the judgment in D.S. Nakara vs Union of India.

This landmark judgement established unmistakably the principle of equality under Article 14 of the Constitution between those who retired before and on, or after the effective date of implementation of the Pay Commission's recommendations.

It may be recalled that the Supreme Court observed in the Nakara case that "pension is neither a bounty, nor a matter of grace depending upon the sweet will of the employer, nor an ex-gratia payment. It is a payment for the past services rendered. It is a social welfare measure rendering socio-economic justice to those who in the heyday of their life ceaselessly toiled for the employer on an assurance that in their old age they would not be left in the lurch."

However, in a 2005 judgment on equal treatment in the matter of Death-Cum-Retirement Gratuity for those who retired before and after January 1, 1996, the same court observed that: "We are afraid that the refrain of D. S. Nakara (supra) has been played too often to retain its initial charm, which has been worn thin by subsequent dicta".

The unexceptionable principal of the Nakara case was that there should not be two classes of pensioners who retired from the same post by drawing a cut-off line and granting the revised higher benefits to those who retired on or after the cut-off date. It appears that the judiciary, nudged by the establishment, has during the last few years been able to chip away at the security edifice built carefully during the 1980s.

In a recent judgment relating to the case of those who retired from important field posts in the Railways, this principle has been negated by contending that the principle established in the Nakara case need "not be interpreted to mean that emoluments of persons who retired before a notified date holding the same status must be treated to be the same". Not only is a `class within a class' thus sought to be created, the pre-1996 retirees, who are all above 70, are left with a sense of great hurt and deprivation, if not betrayal.

Perversely though, retirees in their sixties today may be having a good night's rest now, but they too will join the ranks of Les Miserables with the implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission, which is now a work in progress.

R. Sundaram

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