Subordinate court employees move Bombay High Court against new pension scheme

The Bombay High Court has sought responses from the High Court registrar and Maharashtra State Law and Justice Department in a plea challenging the applicability of new Defined Contribution Pension Scheme (DCPS) to the members of State Judicial Employees Confederation..A bench of Justices AK Menon and MS Karnik on Friday called for reply affidavits of all respondents on the issue and posted the matter for hearing after 2 weeks.The confederation of group C comprises judicial employees working in the subordinate courts of Maharashtra.The employees filed the present petition aggrieved by a letter of December 2021 issued by the High Court which introduced the new pension scheme for government servants recruited after November 1, 2005.The confederation included members appointed before November 2005 which were governed by the old pension scheme and some of the petitioners were governed by the new scheme..The plea said that the State Law and Justice department framed rules and regulations regarding service conditions of government employees. These rules stipulated retirement benefits.In 2003, the Central government introduced a new contribution pension scheme for employees recruited after January 1, 2003.On the same lines, the State also introduced a DCPS in 2005 which clarified that the pension rules and existing general provident fund scheme would not be applicable to the government servants recruited on or after November 2005.The new scheme was merged with the National Pension Scheme in 2014..The scheme had two tiers:In first tier, every government employee makes a monthly contribution at 10% of his dearness pay and the state makes an equal contribution which will be kept in an account from where one cannot withdraw till retirement. Upon exit it is also made mandatory to invest 40% of the total pension to purchase an annuity from Life Insurance Company.Second tier gave the employee discretion to withdraw from the scheme.The new pension scheme provided that the government employee would have the flexibility to leave the pension scheme. However, the mandatory annuitization was kept at 80% of the pension wealth..This scheme was made applicable to the subordinate courts in 2008 by way of notification issued by the Bombay High Court. The petitioner confederation made several representations to the Chief Justice of Bombay High Court to implement the old pension scheme to the subordinate staff instead of the new scheme.In response, the Registrar addressed a letter in December 2021 stating that the Chief Justice had directed to keep the matter pending till the petition challenging the State notification of 2005 before the Aurangabad Bench is decided.This letter along with the notification of 2008 has been challenged in the present writ petition.