Write Comment     |     E-Mail To a Friend     |     Facebook     |     Twitter     |     Print

An 80-year-old senior citizen, who has been struggling with the education department for the full payment of his rightful pension even after 21 years of retirement, has now approached the Human Rights Protection Foundation of Udupi to seek justice. Ignoring the verdict given by the Supreme Court in this case, the officials of the education department are trying to mislead the court by giving false affidavits.

The Background

Principal Raghupathi Bhat retired in 2002 after serving nearly 33 years at the government-aided Venkataramana PU College, Karkala. He had requested the college management three months before his retirement to send all the documents required for the sanction of his pension to the concerned department.

However, due to the negligence of the management board as well as the education department, the pension was never sanctioned for 15 years. For that, Professor Bhat had to fight a long legal battle from the District Court up to the Supreme Court of India.

Finally on the basis of the Supreme Court order, 177 months of pension arrears were paid to him on 17-10-2017 in one lump sum. But the department did not include interest arrears of 15 years for the late payment. In a communication given by officials of the pension department, they added a note "We have given the pension arrears. However, for the payment of interest you may please approach the government”

Now the fight for interest

For almost two years, he wrote dozens of letters right from the director of the PUE Board to the Secretary of the education department, but there was no response from anyone. Undeterred, Professor Bhat approached the High Court again in 2019. After 18-months of hearing, the Court ruled that 8 percent interest for the pension arrears has to be paid. It also imposed a deadline of four weeks for payment of interest. The government was also directed by the court to recover this amount from those responsible for the delay.

Contempt suit again

The High Court’s order to pay interest on pension delay was not obeyed for at least the next 9 months. The officials did not reply to Bhat’s letter in this regard, so a contempt of court suit was filed. Now the government prosecutor who appeared in the court asked for a period of 3 weeks to get approval from the Ministry of Finance as the officials of various departments are working on this. The High Court permitted the same.

Since the three-week deadline given by the High Court has not been obeyed even after ten months, a "Memo" was submitted to the Court on 04-10-2022.

Now that the officials of the education department were convinced that the arrest order would come, the department calculated in its “own way” and deposited less than half of the amount due to Professor Bhat in his account. They also filed a false affidavit that the court order was obeyed.

Is it necessary to fight till death?

When the government has announced a policy that the pension should be paid to the elderly in their next month of retirement, shouldn’t the officials adhere to it? Firstly, he was delayed payment of pension by 177 months. Even though the court ordered to pay 8% interest on the delayed payment of the pension, the interest due on the arrears was paid only after 63 months. Even though that was only half of the total amount, surprisingly an affidavit was filed in the court that the court order has been obeyed. This injustice also has been brought to the notice of the Court.

Should 80-year-old Raghupathi Bhat continue to fight this case until his last breath?

Full cooperation from the foundation

Udupi Human Rights Protection Foundation has been supporting and guiding senior citizens to get their pensions and delayed interest. Now according to another government order issued, based on the 2003 court judgment, interest at the rate of 12 percent has to be paid in case of delay in disbursement of pension and other benefits. The Foundation will fully cooperate to ensure victims get their full due to the last penny.

13-02-2023                                                                                                                    

Udupi

                                                                                                                                Dr. Ravindranath Shanbhog

                                                                                                                                                  President

Human Rights Protection Foundation                  Mobile: 8971033582

Prof. Raghupathi Bhat

Karkala

Box Item

The never-ending struggle

There is an important point in the third paragraph of the order passed by the High Court in Professor Raghupathi Bhat’s case. It says interest should be paid to Bhat along with the accumulated pension as per rules. The amount of interest and expenses incurred to fight this case should be recovered from those responsible for this injustice. The foundation is already investigating whether the department officials or the governing body of the college is responsible. Applications has already been filed under the Right to Information Act to reach the truth. Why should people’s tax money be wasted on injustice done by government officials or the college administration? Offenders must pay the price.