Revised pension for aided school pensioners from December: Punjab to HC

The High Court was on November 14 hearing a contempt petition filed by pensioners of government-aided schools, including KK Sharma, Net Singh, Bachittar Singh and Nirmal Singh Bhangoo.

On July 11, the Punjab finance and education departments informed the court that a decision regarding retirement benefits from the Sixth Pay Commission had been taken in favor of the petitioners. They said the revised pension would come into effect from January 2016 and a decision on the arrears owed from January 2016 to June this year would be taken within six months. Retirees would start receiving real financial benefits from July, he said. The state was represented by officials including additional chief secretary (education) Parvinder Pal Singh and finance secretary Gurpreet Kaur Sapra.

A notification issued by the Ministry of School Education on June 27 laid out the roadmap for recalculation of pensions from 2016 and release of payments from July.

KK Sharma, annoyed by the inordinate delay in implementing the revised pension, moved the court after receiving no response to a notice sent to the departments concerned, including the finance secretary and the education department, and the direction of public instructions (secondary). When payments were not made in July as promised, contempt motions were filed.

“We filed a contempt petition, the first hearing of which was scheduled for October 18. The respondents demanded 10 days to file a compliance report and the next hearing was scheduled for November 14,” Sharma said.

During the hearing on November 14, the court also clarified that failure to meet this deadline would allow the applicants to relaunch their contempt appeal. Additionally, the court declared that the officials responsible would be personally liable to pay a fine of ₹50,000, to be borne out of their own pockets, as compensation for legal costs.