Delhi varsity retirees deprived of pension

new delhi — An administrative botch-up has deprived hundreds of Delhi University (DU) retirees of their pension since 2014, with the varsity telling a court here that it cannot abide by an August 2016 order to pay as it doesn’t have the money to do so. The case will now be taken up on April 17.

In the decade from 1989 to 1999, Delhi University (DU) gave its employees the option through circulars to choose between Contributory Provident Fund (CPF) or pension upon retirement. It gave this option not once or twice but 11 times in total.

However, the University Grants Commission (UGC), which funds central universities like DU, asked that the option be stopped in 1999 saying it did not have the power to do so. By this time several employees had exercised their choice in choosing for either pension or CPF through these circulars, while there were many who did not choose either.

The DU circulars had come following a central government order dated May 1, 1987. The order stated that “all CPF beneficiaries... will be deemed to have come over to the Pension Scheme” from the date mentioned before, unless they explicitly request to remain in CPF by informing this to their offices on or before September 30 of the same year.

Almost two decades later, in an unrelated case, a court here ruled in 2006 that a similar option given by the Bureau Of Indian Standards (BIS) was not in order as it was applicable only until September 30, 1987. Those who did not make a choice till that date would be treated as pensioners when they retired.

The court, then, ruled that the September 30, 1987, date was sacrosanct and all central government employees, as per the recommendation of the Fourth Central Pay Commission, will be deemed to have come into pension without their having specifically expressed so. —