Prayagraj, Sep 2 (PTI) The Allahabad High Court has stayed the recovery of commutation amount from the pension of a retired senior manager of the Indian Overseas Bank and asked the bank to file its reply within four weeks.
The order was passed by Justice Ajit Kumar hearing a writ petition filed by retired bank official Sudhir Kumar Agrawal.
Commutation of pension refers to the payment of a lump sum amount in lieu of a portion of pension surrendered voluntarily by the pensioner based on duration of period.
Appearing on behalf of petitioner, senior advocate A K Gupta submitted before the court that recovery by way of instalments towards commutation of pension which was to the extent of 1/3 of total pension fixed by the bank beyond the period of 10 years and eight months resulted in excess recovery.
He submitted that the petitioner retired in 2012 and the total commutation amount was Rs 7,14,000, for which the instalment for deduction was fixed Rs 6,066 per month, which accounted to Rs 7,14,000 within a period of 10 years and eight months.
Since respondents have continued with deductions, Rs 1,95,810 in excess have been recovered, the advocate said. He submitted that if this way recovery is continued, it will result in huge financial loss to the petitioner for no justifiable reasons.
Bank’s counsel Maneesh Mehrotra argued that in view of the clause 5 of Chapter VIII of Indian Overseas Bank (Employees’) Pension Regulations, 1995, the total recovery has to be made within a period of 15 years and is then the original pension stands restored.
However, he was not able to justify how the recovery will continue with the upper ceiling limit of 15 years when the commuted amount of pension has already been recovered.
The court, in its order passed on August 22, stayed the further recovery from the pension amount of the petitioner towards commutation and listed the case after six weeks. PTI COR RAJ KVK KVK
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