Dear friends,
If anyone really deserves the award for hypocrisy, it has to be LIC of India! Its advertisement in The Times of India states proudly - Vigilant India. Prosperous India. The four things listed here are corruption, criminality, dishonesty and fraud.
I would like to draw the attention of the readers of this blog to the following facts brought out due to my RTI appeal for information from LIC of India:
LIC of India does not have information about 18 questions asked me out of my 21 questions posed to it, Even the three answered by them were incomplete and incorrect.
*LIC of India stated that the decision to repudiate arrears payment to us ex-employees who resigned before completion of 20 years of service, was taken by the Government of India.
This decision is actually taken by the Managing Board of Directors of the Corporation and the Government of India only ratifies it. (Of course, erroneously as it goes against the Supreme Court's judgment on this issue!)
I brought this fact to the notice of the Information Commissioner who agreed.
LIC of India is an autonomous body that takes its own decisions and reports them to the Government of India.
*LIC of India said that it doesn't have all the information that I asked for as the information is spread all over its offices and that I should approach each and every of the more than 2000 offices of the Corporation for my answers! Even the Information Commissioner sympathized with it and asked me to file separate appeals.
I informed the Information Commissioner that LIC of India has all the details asked for me in its central server. It just doesn't want to divulge the information, hence is making this excuse of not having the requisite information at one place.
The height of making a false statement by the Corporation was that it didn't need these records as asked by me for its regular functioning and getting it and providing it to me would stress its resources! The Information Commissioner supported LIC's incorrect stand.
If the Corporation can ask me as an individual with meager resources; to make more than 2000 appeals and file court cases to get my dues, why can't it with so much man power at its disposal and as mandated by the RTI Act do the needful? Besides, it is lying through its teeth that it doesn't have the information.
I will have to take 2000 and more rebirths to get answers from LIC of India to get all my answers at the rate at which LIC responds!
It took 22 emails from me and later, an email that I would be sending a lawyer's notice that made LIC give a terse reply at last that I wouldn't be paid as per rules!
Which rules was it talking about? The fraudulent Clause 3 1B that even the Supreme Court had long ago in 2007 struck down as ultra vires!
LIC of India has not accounted for the repudiated arrears' sums running into several crores of rupees in its Books of Accounts! What could be more fraudulent, dishonest, criminal and corrupt than this act?
If it had accounted for it, it would have divulged the information regarding number of employees who have been denied the payments and the total amounts repudiated till date from 1st August 1997.
The CPIO (Western Zonal Office) called me up from the Zonal Office's landline number and intimidated me and mockingly said that I wouldn't get any answers from LIC of India. I quote him "Asking for answers from LIC of India is like breaking your head against a brick wall. LIC will not answer any of your questions as it doesn't want to open Pandora's Box! You can file a case against the Corporation but even if you file a court case against LIC of India, you will lose the case. This RTI appeal of yours will be closed in a month!"
He even asked me why I had asked the Information Commissioner to impose a penalty on him and LIC of India for not answering my queries within the stipulated time, as mandated by the RTI Act.
To say that his reprehensible statements were presumptuous and shocking, would be an understatement.
To add insult to injury, when I appraised the IC at the hearing about his remarks, he brazenly asked me "Have I ever spoken to you?" to which I immediately retorted, "You are lying".
The IC then asked him to be transparent in his dealings in future.
I wonder how the officials in the Managing Board of Directors of LIC of India even get sound sleep at night, after defrauding scores of resigning ex-employees of their hard-earned dues like arrears arising due to wage revision, difference in Statutory Retirement benefits like Provident Fund and Gratuity; despite the Supreme Court's verdict favoring such employees, in several cases? No prick of conscience?
Ironically, they will even take an oath of acting ethically, in their dealings as office-bearers of the Corporation, during the currently ongoing Vigilance Week! And keep including the illegal Clause in the Wage Revision Charter, every time that it is published; stipulating that such arrears are to be repudiated. By the way, this Clause was included in the 2010 and 2016 Wage Revision Charters, even after the 2007 judgement of the Supreme Court! And even approved by the Government of India!
A clear case of 'Contempt of Court'.
The Supreme court has ruled in its 2007 judgment that this offending Clause is "Ultra Vires" i.e. beyond the reach of power, of the Chairman of LIC of India.
May we persuade these officials to look up the dictionary for the equivalent of 'ethics'?
Even walk the talk? But probably that is too tall an order!
However, rest assured dear friends, the truth will ultimately prevail. We will definitely get our dues in the near future. Didn't India win her freedom after decades, nay, a century of struggle? Even if none of us is around, our descendants will reap the benefits of our crusade against LIC's injustice.
Satyameva Jayate!
Priya
