BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court directed the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Services and the Karnataka Department of Health and Family Welfare Services to pay a gratuity of Rs 4.09 lakh with 10 per cent interest per annum to a retired employee.
If the petitioner is not paid the gratuity within days from the date of the receipt of this order, the petitioner will be entitled to a penalty apart from the 10 per cent interest. It will include Rs 1,000 for every day of delay till the money is settled, the court added.
The court passed the order, allowing a petition filed by Babu, who is from Belagavi. He was fighting to get the gratuity that he was supposed to get within a month of his retirement on March 31, 2007.
“It is trite that the gratuity is not a bounty that can be withheld at the sweet will or whim of the employer. The employer is the Secretary of Health and Family Welfare, Government of Karnataka. The state treating its employee of not paying gratuity, a terminal benefit for the last 16 years depicts apathy towards the citizens, particularly of the retired employees, whose voices have become feeble by progression of age and therefore the state does not hear such voices. Thus, callousness is displayed by denying gratuity,” Justice M Nagaprasanna observed in the order.
The court also said the state can as well ignore the plea of a citizen for payment of gratuity, as it has nothing to lose, but if an employee whose retirement is dependent on the receipt of terminal benefits, gratuity, of which one, is delayed or denied, he would be condemned to penury, and be driven to impecuniosity, having no money to fall back upon, at the advancing old age.
The petitioner was appointed as a first-division clerk at the Postpartum Centre at Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College in 1973. After completing 34 years of service, he retired on attaining the age of superannuation. As the gratuity was not paid in terms of the Payment of Gratuity Act, he approached the Controlling Authority under the Act to determine the gratuity and direct its payment.
Allowing the application in May 2012, the Controlling Authority determined the gratuity to be paid at Rs 4.09 lakh with 10 per cent interest per annum from September 2007. This order was neither challenged nor paid the gratuity to the petitioner. Hence, the petitioner moved the high court.