Dear friends,
L.I.C of India is as usual, celebrating the Vigilance Week from 26th October to 1st November. Again. an ad has appeared in the esteemed Times of India, with the headline "Hand in hand. Let us take a stand."
The preliminary body copy of the ad is filled with its usual rhetoric!
We, request anyone who has read that ad to peruse the blog-post as carried below, to know the extent of the Corporation's malpractices as far as we resigning ex-employees are concerned. To the Corporation, we are persona non-grata!
Today, we also take a pledge to steadfastly and vigorously pursue our case regarding illegal repudiation of our hard-earned back wages; i.e. arrears and other dues; till its logical conclusion.
We will walk hand in hand and take a stand that L.I.C of India MUST pay all our dues immediately. We hope and pray that the Government of India supports our stand and proactively helps us in realizing all our hard-earned money with interest at the earliest. Even the prospective investors in L.I.C of India's prospective I.P.O., newly appointed law firms and statutory auditors must stress on the Managing Board of Directors to pay up; clear this long-outstanding, (unaccounted for) liability running into several crores of rupees since August, 1997 (more than two decades!) and clear the Balance Sheet of the Corporation.
The readers are requested to peruse my earlier blog-post dated 24th January, 2021, concerning the estimate of wage revision arrears repudiated unconstitutionally, unethically and remorselessly by our ex-employer - Life Insurance Corporation of India.
Our trust in our ex-employer L.I.C, has been betrayed, not empowered, by none other than L.I.C! So obviously, we take its rhetoric with a large pinch of salt.
We finally urge L.I.C of India to walk the talk! ASAP.
The long-suffering, resigning, ex-employees of L.I.C of India!
SATYAMEVA JAYATE!
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Blog-post dated 28th October, 2020
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 to 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
