Daijiworld Media Network – Udupi (JS/EP)

Udupi, Aug 22: The Udupi consumer court has come to the rescue of a staff whose pension was cut for no fault of hers.

While giving away details of the case, Human Rights Foundation president Dr Ravindranath Shanbhog said Geetha Kanchan, a resident of Hejmadi had retired in 2014 after working in a private bank at Hejmady for nearly 17 years.

The bank had been deducting a part of her salary towards her provident fund contribution throughout her service. She was drawing an amount of Rs 1,756 as pension after retirement which was far too less for her livelihood.

She received a letter from the regional provident fund office, Udupi on September 22, 2020 after about six years that her pension had been reduced by Rs 500 from her monthly pension with effect from May 2020.

Geetha Kanchan who went to the provident fund office to get a clarification for the deduction was shocked to hear that the office had paid her an additional amount of Rs 500 every month for the last six years. She was asked to return the total amount of Rs 50,147 in lumpsum by demand draft.

When she went to the pension office in Udupi, she was told the office does not have a joint declaration document with them and that the auditors had objected to it. She was then asked to give a copy of the document.

In the letter received from the office in January 2021 she was warned that legal action would be taken against her if the due amount from her is not returned. Geetha Anchan who was worried, got in touch with the Human Rights Protection Foundation in Udupi and sought their protection. When she asked the bank branch where she was employed for a joint declaration document, she was told that it is in their head office. The head office said that it had been lost.

Udupi district consumer court registered a case against Mahalaxmi Bank and the provident office in this connection. The court which heard the case for about nine months ordered that the provident fund office should immediately pay her Rs 1,756 as monthly pension to her. The office was also directed to  pay Rs 500 per month that was deducted from her pension and should stop the process of recovering Rs 50,147 from her.

The court has also ordered the office to pay within a month a sum of Rs 25,000 as compensation for the mental agony and Rs 10,000 towards court fees within a month, said Dr Ravindranath Shanbhog.

Section 300 (a) of the constitution states that pension is not alms. The right to live cannot be snatched away just because a joint declaration document was missing, said Dr Shanbhog.