Hyderabad: A division bench of the Telangana High Court, comprising Justice Sujoy Paul and Justice N. Tukaramji, found fault with the Telugu Academy of Telangana and the AP State Telugu and Sanskrit Academy for making their retired employees to run from pillar to post and causing them to wage a long drawn litigation before the courts for getting their retrial dues like pension and other benefits, which is the right of every employee.
The bench was dealing with a petition filed by 15 retired employees of Telugu Academy in the composite state of Andhra Pradesh, who had retired after the bifurcation and before the non-apportionment of employees, assets and liabilities of academy between the two states. Their grievance was that even after the Supreme Court’s 2022 directions to the academies of the two states to pay the full retirement benefits to them within a specific time period, the directors of the academies had complied with the orders.
Both academies had submitted before the Supreme Court that they had come to an agreement on this issue that payment of full pension benefits to the 11 employees would be by the Telangana Telugu Academy while the remaining four employees would be paid by the AP Telugu and Sanskrit Academy.
However, after that the Telangana Academy took a different stand that they are obligated to pay only 41.68 per cent of total pension benefits as per the Section 59 or the Eighth Schedule of the AP Reorganization Act of 2014.
The bench faulted them for taking shelter under Section 59 and directed both academies to comply with the statement made before the apex court and forthwith complete all the formalities. The court also ordered that the service record and relevant registers of the employees allocated to the other state should be transferred to the respective academy but not beyond fifteen days to enable the other academy to work out the pension and pay the same to the retired employees. The pension of the petitioners be recalculated and paid to them by deducting the pension already paid, within two weeks therefrom. In view of order of the apex court, the petitioners, who are in the twilight of their lives, are entitled to get six per cent interest on the delayed payment of pension arrears, the bench observed.
The bench also directed the two academies to file compliance reports of the said order before the registrar (Judicial-I) of this court by June 24. The registrar (Judicial-I) was directed to list this matter only for the purpose of ensuring compliance on June 27.
