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The Kerala High Court on Monday directed the State government to comply by April 12 directives to pay monthly pension to retired KSRTC employees in the first week of every month and consider the recommendations of the KSRTC on revision of pay and pension of employees and retired employees respectively.
Justice Devan Ramachandran also warned the State government that if the directives were not complied with by April 12, the respondents including the Chief Secretary shall appear in person to explain why the government is not able to implement the directives.
The court passed the order on a petition filed by the KSRTC Pensioners’ Organisation seeking to initiate contempt of court proceedings against the Chief Secretary and Chairman and Managing Director of the KSRTC.
When the petition was taken up for hearing, the Special government pleader submitted that all steps had been initiated to comply with the directives though concurrence from certain departments were awaited. Therefore, the counsel sought more time to comply with the directives.
When the petition came up for hearing in August last year, the government pleader had submitted that the burden of payment of pension to the retired employees of KSRTC had been taken over by the State government, through a government order dated 17.02.2018. It was issued pursuant to a memorandum of understanding with a consortium of co-operative societies and the KSRTC. He had added that pension has been paid to the employees without any fail until June 2022, but because of a issue relating to the interest payable to the consortium of banks, pension for the months of July and August, 2022, were yet to be paid.
He had added that discussions in this regard were underway and the imbroglio would be resolved without any further delay. The revision could be claimed by the pensioners only when the recommendations made by the KSRTC was approved by the State government. Since the revision of pension would create a large financial burden and would require extensive deliberations with various stakeholders, including the consortium of banks, the government had not yet taken a decision on it.
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