CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has said that pension is a right of the employees and not a bounty offered by the employer.
The court made the observation while dismissing the petitions filed by Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), Kalpakkam, challenging the orders of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) on permitting certain technical employees to switch over to general provident fund (GPF) scheme from contributory provident fund (CPF) scheme for the purposes of pension benefits.
Referring to the Supreme Court’s verdict in Shashi Kiran case, a division bench of justices M S Ramesh (since retired) and V Lakshminarayanan noted that the financial ramifications of the respondents cannot be a ground to deny pensionary benefits.
“We have to remind ourselves that pension is a right and not a bounty. Any action of the authorities having the effect of diluting or depriving the said right has to be construed restrictively. In case, ambiguity exists, it should be interpreted in favour of the employees concerned,” the bench said in a recent order.
The matter pertains to the option provided for technical employees of IGCAR to switch over to GPF from CPF with certain conditions of eligibility regarding the period of service and cut-off date for submitting application for the option of switchover.
When the petitioners, including P V Sellaperumal, Gaurav Bhanda and S Alfred, submitted applications, they were rejected.