Muristek
New Delhi, May 30
After a protracted legal battle spread over 16 years, a group of teachers from Delhi University have finally won a pension case after the Supreme Court dismissed the university's appeal against a 2017 verdict of the Delhi High Court that went in their favour.
Junked varsity's plea
The top court took 18 months to deliver the verdict on an appeal filed by DU against a 2017 verdict of the Delhi High Court that went in teachers' favour.
Dismissing Delhi University's appeal, a Bench led by Justice UU Lalit held that both the Shashi Kiran batch of cases and the NC Bakshi batch of cases were rightly decided by the Delhi High Court.
"Considering the circumstances on record, in our view, the decision rendered by the Division Bench of the (Delhi) High Court in Shashi Kiran batch of cases does not call for any interference except to the extent of direction for recouping of the contribution under the General Provident Fund (GPF) with 8 per cent simple interest per annum," the top court said.
It all started in May 1987, when the central government issued a notification requiring its employees to switch over from the then CPF (Contributory Provident Fund) to the GPF, unless the employee deliberately and overtly opted to stay in the CPF scheme. The university adopted the scheme and made it applicable to its employees. Some teachers of the university and of affiliate colleges chose to remain in the CPF, while others remained non-committal. By the conditions of the scheme, all employees other than those who deliberately chose to remain in the CPF were deemed to have switched over to the pension scheme after the cut-off date.
In 2006, some teachers of Shivaji College moved the Delhi High Court claiming application of the pension scheme because despite the teachers of this college never having exercised option to remain in CPF, the university refused to treat them as having converted to the pension scheme in accordance with the applicable notification of the Central Government, as adopted by University of Delhi.
The university unilaterally repeatedly extended the deadline for exercise of option, causing confusion among teachers. "It is possible that at this length of time, some of the employees in the Shashi Kiran batch of cases may not be interested in switching over to the GPF. But an option must be accorded to them in such a manner as the authorities deem appropriate," it added.