ALL INDIA RBI OERS PENSIONERS’ FORUM
C/o Adv. Ramesh Aherrao, General Secretary,
20, ‘Radhey’, Ujwal Layout, Jaitala Road,
Nagpur – 440 022
Forum
Web Site: - www.airbiopf.org Ph. – 0712-2230805
Date : 20.08.2009
Central Office,
Central Office Building,
Shahid Bhagat
Singh Marg,
Mumbai-400001.
Respected Sir,
Sub: RBI Platinum Jubilee
celebrations - Dark
assertions reflecting shadows behind
illuminated jubilee.
During this year of celebrations of the RBI Platinum
jubilee, we congratulate the Bank on its glorious march into its seventy-fifth
year. We wish and are sure that it will be one of the leading Central Banking
Institutions of the world in the years to come.
Recently
the Bank has started sending copies of the CBDT circular F No.
173(1)/32/2009-ITA-1 dated May 8, 2009 to each OERS retiree wherein it has been
stated that relying on a letter from RBI in 2005 the Board did not allow tax
exemption under section 10(10C) of the Income Tax Act, 1961 to the OERS
retirees and after the Hon’ble Bombay High Court’s judgement in July, 2008, the Board has decided that the
employees of Reserve Bank of India who accepted OERS would be entitled for the
benefit of exemption under section 10(10C) of the Income Tax Act, 1961. At this
happy moment when we are celebrating the Platinum jubilee, we do not want to go
into the merits or demerits of the Bank’s letter to CBDT as mentioned by CBDT
in its circular mentioned above, although it caused immense financial harm and
mental agony to the Optees of the scheme. We recognize with gratitude the
Bank’s gesture to rectify its mistaken notion observed five years back.
Nevertheless, it is an agonizing hard fact that by now, a large number of OERS retirees,
who sincerely believed in Bank’s interpretation, now stand deprived of the
opportunity to claim refund to the tune of Rs.1.5-2 lacs
in each case as their claims have since been rendered time barred. Besides, it
is also a fact that, the Bank, by deducting Income Tax on the entire amount of
Ex-gratia at source, had subjected the 4468 OERS retirees to colossal drainage
of time, energy and money by forcing them to knock at the doors of the Revenue
and Hon’ble High Courts for justice. For five long
years the retires were made to struggle by an
erroneous administrative decision which any responsive management would not
have liked its retirees to face. In the circumstances, we would request that
bank to use its good offices with CBDT to allow the refunds to the OERS optees,
as it would go a long way in helping those OERS retirees who, being misguided
by the Bank’s interpretation, were deprived of the exemption of tax.
.
We also bring to your kind notice
another inappropriate action taken by the then Bank’s management that has
resulted in evident discrimination against the OERS retirees, by including
restrictive clauses in the Memoramdum of Settlements
dated 05.10.2005 & 24.10.2005 and in the Administration Circular dated
21.11.2005 to the effect that no arrears on the basis of revised pay and allowances
will be payable for the amount of Ex-gratia paid by the Bank to those who
retired under the OERS. The appeals of the OERS retirees at various branches of
RBI for arrears on Ex-gratia based on revised pay scales has been turned down
by RBI without going into the merits. Needless to say, this highly
discriminatory and unjust administrative decision has forced the OERS retirees
at different centres to knock at the doors of the Hon’ble
High Courts at different places.
Under the
circumstances, and in this year of Platinum Jubilee, we would request the Bank
to rethink on the entire issue as a benevolent employer by resisting the
outdated approach of defending its decision, even when it might be erroneous or
harmful to those who served the bank sincerely, in view of the following facts:
i) The
very fact that the bank had to include restrictive clauses in the Memoramdum of Settlements dated 05.10.2005 & 24.10.2005
and in the Administration Circular dated 21.11.2005 to the effect that no
arrears on the basis of revised pay and allowances will be payable for the
amount of Ex-gratia paid by the Bank to those who retired under the OERS proves
beyond doubt that there was nothing in the Optional Early Retirement Scheme
introduced vide Bank’s A.C. No 1 dated August 11, 2003 that prohibited a OERS retiree’s claim to arrears on the Ex-gratia amount
based on subsequent pay revision.
ii) The Bank by forcing its retirees to move courts to get what
legitimately belongs to them, is acting against the very concept of “model
employer”. Moreover, the emphasis these days is on out of court settlements
rather than engaging in long drawn, legal battles.
iii) At
present petitions are pending in various courts at Kolkata, Nagpur, Delhi,
Chandigarh, Mumbai, etc and the entire cost of legal expenses already incurred
and likely to be incurred in future is enormous and can be saved by giving the
retirees their dues even if it is as a special case in this platinum jubilee
year.
iv) Institutions in modern world make it a point that their
retirees feel proud of having worked with them and the employers ensure that
any wrong done is immediately addressed through dialogue rather than awaiting
the court’s decision.
v) Erroneous administrative decisions are set right by
responsive managements throughout the globe these days.
More than 4000 retiress are waiting for a gift in this Platinum jubilee
year in the form of recalculation of their Ex-gratia amount based on pay scales
as revised from November 01, 2002.
Thanking
you,
Yours faithfully,
- Sd -
(Kishore Chakraborty)
President