Krishena Kr & Anr Etc v/s. Union of India & Others
- Antara Paral
- June 16, 2020
Content :
In April 1957, the Railway Contributory Provident fund was replaced by the Pension Scheme. The railway employees who entered after or on 1.4.1957 were involuntarily coming under the Pension Scheme instead of Provident Fund Scheme. On the other hand, the other employees were given an alternative either to switch over to the Pension Scheme or to hold on the Provident Scheme, who was already in the service on 1.4.1957. The petitioners who are retired employees, having no idea about the future benefits of both the schemes, opted for the Provident Fund Scheme. Later on, there was an improvement on pensionary benefits for Pension retirees’ while for Provident Fund retirees’ the benefits remained stationary. For the same, the Railway Board had published twelve notifications for the P.F. retirees to switch over to the Pension Scheme beyond the several cut-off dates, though they have already retired while the same option was not provided to the other comparably Contributory Provident Fund retired employees after the cut-off dates. However that was discriminatory under the Art. 14 of the Constitution. This forced some retired employees to approach court, on the basis that the division among the retirees is biased by making such arbitrary dates and giving advantages to some class and not to the other retirees like petitioners. On 8 May 1987, a new circular had come to the light that there would be a changeover of employees from Provident scheme to the Pension Scheme by the Railway Board. The case is knows as the Krishena Kr. And Anr Etc v. Union of India And Ors , where the Hon’ble Supreme Court called that the Special Leave Petition and the writ petitions are related to the constitutional validity of the Art. 141 of the Constitution of India which says- the courts should stand by the precedent.
