After Working For 35 Years And Retiring As A Bank Chief, This Man Had To Fight For 20 Years For His Pension

Imagine working for 35 years and working hard too. Climbing ranks with slow but steady pace and finally reaching the pinnacle of your sector where you again put in a decade of hardwork. And after your retirement, you're forced to fight for your rightful pension for next 20 years!!!

Yes, that's what has happened to Gajanan Dahotre!

Slamming the Union government for denying a retired Bank of India (BOI) CMD pension because he was promoted early, the Bombay high court has directed that he be given all benefits with arrears and accrued interest starting from 1995.

TOI/Representational Image

Gajanan Dahotre, now above 80, who worked for 38 years in public sector banks, said he was promoted by the Union finance ministry "in the national interest" in 1986 to a "board level" post as a whole-time director after completing almost nine years in a "career level" post. He was 51, then.

But after he retired, the ministry in 1995 said new pension rules required him to have completed 10 years in a career level post and withheld his pension.

A 20-year struggle to get his dues ended when a high court bench headed by Justice Anoop Mohta on October 27 rap`ped the Union finance ministry for its "arbitrary'' action and "non-application of mind" to deny him a pension.

healthylife/Representational Image

Dahotre moved the court in 2014. His lawyer, Sanjay Kher, argued that a June 2014 order by BOI holding him ineligible for pension be set aside. The HC agreed. It said, " A person like him cannot be denied his pensionary benefits... the regulation, a technicality, is causing him great injustice."

Dahotre began his career as a probationary assistant with the State Bank of India in 1957. His rise was steady and two decades later he was the chief manager (merchant banking division) at BOI. In 1986, the finance ministry ordered him to assume higher responsibility as a whole time director at Dena Bank, despite being aware of the 10-year service eligibility requirement for payment of provident fund and gratuity, argued Kher.

He said BOI's gratuity rules treated such an employee as "deemed to have retired from his career-level post, upon such promotion".The ministry did condone his shortfall, then, and ordered BOI to pay him his PF and gratuity in June 1986.

ET/Representational Image

In 1988, the Union government appointed Dahotre as CMD of Dena Bank and in 1992 as CMD of BOI. He retired three years later. BOI in 1995, after his retirement, issued pension regulations, stipulating a 10-year service clause at the career-level post. His pension for his entire banking career was thus arbitrarily withheld, Kher pointed out. Several representations and requests under the RTI Act in 2010-11 elicited no reply . Finally, in 2012, BOI said the 10-year rule was an impediment, but recommended his case to the ministry , which still "failed and neglected to give any reply", the HC observed.

Later, in January 2014, BOI in a letter to Dahotre pointed to the ministry's requirement of adherence to the minimum 10-year service rule and regretted that it could do nothing to release his pension.

BOI/Representational Image

The HC, after hearing counsel for the Centre H V Mehta, held that Dahotre was "not in a position to change the timing of his promotion that resulted in denial of his pension, though he worked for 38 years". Looking at his "unblemished career", the court said, "The ministry ought to have accepted recommendations made by the bank earlier.The concept of public service cannot be considered so narrowly when Dahotre had risen to the call of duty for benefit of the government of India, by serving with another nationalized bank. Such public service needs to be recognized and not seen as a disadvantage in denying him pension."