Employees win; Canara Bank faces payout in caste certificate dispute

S Shyam Prasad | NT

Bengaluru: The High Court of Karnataka has held that the employer Canara Bank, which had accused five employees of submitting invalid caste certificates had to pay their terminal benefits as they had retired during the pendency of the case.

“The pension is not a bounty but a valuable right of a retired employee. The retirees have to hold their body & soul together in the evening of their lives,” the HC said citing a Supreme Court judgement.

Therefore, it held that “When they have been permitted to retire on attaining the age of superannuation, the release of terminal benefits such as pension, PF, etc. cannot be justifiable withheld. The impugned order has this inarticulate premise and therefore, cannot be voided.”

A single judge bench had ordered the Canara Bank to pay the terminal benefits of Keshava S, Ishwara H, G Dinesh, Rajeeva UA and BN Manjunath Naik, who were its employees.

The Bank challenged it in an appeal which was heard by the bench of Chief Justice Prasanna B Varale and Justice Krishna S Dixit. The Division Bench however refused to grant the relief sought by the bank.

“Having heard the learned Senior Advocate appearing for the appellant Bank and having perused the appeal papers, we decline indulgence in the matter broadly agreeing with the views of the learned Single Judge. Admittedly, all the respondents – employees have retired from long service on attaining the age of superannuation,” it said.

The bench cited the single judge order, “It is not in dispute that the petitioners had all retired during the pendency of the said writ petition. Since all the petitioners had retired, the question of them being dismissed from service for submitting an invalid Caste Certificate would not arise. It is also not in dispute that no enquiry, as such, was conducted against the petitioners.

Agreeing with the reasoning of the single-judge bench, the division bench cited, “In the instant case, since the petitioners have been permitted to retire on attaining the age of superannuation and since, admittedly, no enquiry has been held against the petitioners, it is obvious that they would be entitled to terminal benefits after having rendered service of more than 25 years. In law, by virtue of the fact that the petitioners were permitted to retire, it is clear that they were not dismissed/ terminated from service and they were therefore employees till they attained the age of superannuation and consequently, they would be entitled to all terminal benefits.”

Stating that the appeal by the Canara Bank was devoid of merits and had to be rejected, the HC said, “It hardly needs to be stated that the propositions of law do not operate in vacuum. It is pertinent to refer to what Lord Halsbury said more than century ago in Quinn Vs Leathem, (1901) QUINN that a case is an authority for the proposition that it actually lays down in a given fact matrix and not for all that, that logically follows from what has been so laid down.”