Retirees from State government universities hope that their pension dues will be settled following a high court verdict.
On June 16, the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court, in a case pertaining to appeal for pension disbursement by the Manonmaniam Sundaranar University All Administrative Staff Association, ruled that the Local Fund Audit office has no powers to deny pension settlement of employees of the State Universities.
The MSU staff had contested a letter dated May 29, 2013, by Apurva Varma, then higher education secretary, to the director of Local Fund Audit and the registrars of state universities.
Mr. Varma had directed the registrars of universities to refix pay, reverse wrong promotions and increments and recover excess payment made from the individual staff concerned. The secretary’s letter was based on objections raised by the LFA in various state universities.
In a 12-page order the judge G.R. Swaminathan relied on the MSU statutes to declare that the government had no authority to determine if a university had wrongly promoted or increased an employee’s pay.
The judge said section 27 of the University’s Act empowered the Syndicate to appoint lecturers and university staff and fix their emoluments. “It is not for the Local Fund Audit to go into the justification of the promotions given by the university. That the government relied entirely on the LFA report “clearly amounts to interference with the internal administration of the university. Section 27 of the Act has been misconstrued by the government,” he said.
The judgement could bring relief to the retired staff of the University of Madras, whose pension benefits have not been paid as the State government refused to release block grants due to it owing to the LFA objections.
In March, the government issued an order that no block grants would be released to University of Madras until it acted on setting right “irregular appointments, improper fixation, wrong increments, incentives, higher start of pay and promotions.”
P.T. Srinivasan, a former Syndicate Member of the University said, “The judgement is notable as it recognises the boundaries provided to the Universities by their Act, in functioning, as approved by their statutory bodies,” adding, that the judgement had delimited the LF Audit “from over-reach and precludes the government from transgression and quashed the letter” issued in 2013.
“The judgement pertains to all universities in the State. In this light, the recent G.O. withholding grants to Madras University may be relaxed,” he observed.
