A list of 136 deprived pensioners was submitted to Committee. It said, "withholding pension benefits for these persons is gross harassment."
Representative image. Photo: PTI
New Delhi: The Parliamentary Committee on the Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes has recommended that the Department of Personnel and Training should issue guidelines that caste certificates of SC/ST employees be verified within six months of their joining service, failing which they should be treated as authentic unless otherwise proved before the employee’s confirmation.
The recommendation by the Committee has come in its ninth report on Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions. The report titled “Study of atrocity cases against Scheduled Casts and Scheduled Tribes with respect to implementation of the Prevention of Atrocities Act, 1989 with special reference to cases related to withholding of pensions and retirement benefits of SC/ST employees” was presented to the Lok Sabha on December 13.
The Committee, chaired by BJP Lok Sabha MP Premjibhai Solanki and comprising 19 other members of the Lower House and 10 of the Rajya Sabha, had taken up the issue of atrocities on SC/ST employees through the process verification of caste certificates in 2020-21 and continued with the subject this fiscal.
`Immediate verification will prevent employment on basis of false certificate’
In its report, the Committee said, “If the organisation carried out the verification process immediately on joining of a person, then no person can gain employment on the basis of a false caste certificate.”
Stating that it had observed that at present “verification of caste certificate is started at the fag end of the career of the employee,” the panel said, “withholding pension benefits for these persons is gross harassment of the employee, both mental and financial, and also physical because a person nearing retirement is almost a senior citizen with numerous health and family responsibilities.”
The Committee also recommended that DoPT, in coordination with the state governments, should “make verification of caste certificate a time-bound exercise so that it is not used as a tool to harass gullible SC and ST employees at the time of retirement” by any organisation, department, PSU or autonomous body.
It said the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions should also issue clear guidelines to all these organisations, PSUs and banks, etc., that caste certificate of a person should be verified within six months of their joining. It also stated that the State Level Scrutiny Committee, which has issued the certificate, should also be asked to verify the authenticity of the certificate within six months or before the confirmation of the employee, whichever is later.
`No action should be taken on anonymous complaints’
On the issue of verification process taking a long time because of the inaccessibility of old records, the Committee cited an office memorandum of DoPT and a circular of the Central Vigilance Commission to state that “verification of only those employees with ST caste certificates should be done who were appointed after 1995” and that “no action should be taken on anonymous/ pseudonymous complaints”.
It added that “pension benefits and emoluments of SC/ST person who were appointed before 1995 should not be withheld in case their caste certificates have not been verified” and “for those employees who have been appointed after 1995, the process of verification should be completed within three months from date of presentation of report of the committee.”
The parliamentary panel has also recommended that DoPT frame suitable guidelines in consultation with the state government and Ministry of Law and Justice to resolve these issues and to protect the interests of the retiring or retired employees.
The panel noted that it had received representations from various SC/ST organisation, and the Akhil Bhartiya Adivasi Vikas Parishad in particular, wherein it was alleged that Scheduled Tribe employees were being harassed in various government organisations and departments, including the public sector undertakings, at the time of their retirement.
It was also claimed in these representations that the retirement benefits or pensions of these employees were being withheld at the time of their retirement, saying that their caste certificate had not been verified.
The Parishad submitted a representation on July 27, 2020 in which it was stated that various organisations in Tamil Nadu as also PSU banks and undertakings were resorting to such harassment of their ST employees.
List of 136 ‘deprived pensioners’ was submitted to Committee
The panel also received a detailed list as per which there were a total of 136 “deprived pensioners”. These comprised 17 to whom provisional pension was not paid, seven who had passed away (including three whose case was settled) and 11 others whose cases were settled.
The Union ministries whose departments figured in the list included Railways, Shipping, Finance, Communication, Labour and Employment, and the Education Department.
During a sitting of the Committee in September 2020, the panel chairperson said he was “pained to see that several of these employees had even passed away while still awaiting justice in their lives”.
In the meeting, the additional secretary in the Department of Personnel and Training expressed submitted that “there was no point in verification of caste certificate of a person unless there was a genuine complaint against it from an authentic source”.
`No provision to withhold pension for lack of verification of caste certificate’
The panel recorded that the Secretary DoPT was “very clear that there was no provision under any circular of DoPT whereby pension of an employee could be withheld for want of verification of his/her caste certificate”.
It added that the secretary of pension and pensioners’ welfare agreed with the view and “categorically statement that unless there was administrative, legal proceedings of a department against an employee, his/her pension cannot be stopped and that too with the approval of the President”.
It was also pointed out in the meeting that while the Department of Pension and Pensioners Welfare framed rules for the departments which came under Central Civil Services Rules, the autonomous bodies and PSUs and state governments were free to have their own policies with regard to employment benefits and pension and this was the reason for discrepancies which arise in implementation of pension rules across different PSUs, banks and state governments.
It was the secretary of the Department of Telecommunications who observed that the verification of the caste certificate should be done immediately after joining of an employee. He said directions to the effect had been issued in Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited and the same procedure of time-bound verification should be followed by all state governments and PSUs.
‘Benefits should accrue till caste certificate is nullified by competent authority’
The Committee recorded that “the Secretary, Ministry of Tribal Affairs raised a very valid point that until and unless the caste certificate of a person has been nullified by the competent authority, he or she belongs to that caste and should accrue all benefits thereon”. One member of the Committee had also expressed his anguish that so many people were suffering due to administrative laxity and incompetence.
Subsequently, the members of the parliamentary committee had “unanimously agreed that there was no way that salaries and other benefits accrued by a person during his entire in an organisation can neither be taken back nor reimbursed and hence withholding pension of these persons is amounting to atrocity on them”.
Therefore all PSUs and other organisation with the pending cases were asked by the Committee to submit a status report within two months.
PSUs, TN official, ministries apprised Committee of status
In December 2020, another meeting was convened in which the organisations which were not able to provide a “favourable outcome” were called. Since a number of cases pertained to the state of Tamil Nadu, the chief secretary was also summoned with the state speaker’s permission. Appearing before the panel, the chief secretary of Tamil Nadu said while till 1989 all caste certificates were issued by tehsildar, as “there were too many complaints regarding issue of false caste certificates”, the power was given to Revenue Divisional Officers.
He said a Vigilance Cell was formed in 2012 to verify the certificates in 38 districts but as the number of cases of false certificates kept rising, the number of State-level Vigilance Committees were also increased. The official sought two months’ time to resolve these cases.
Since the complaints pertaining to PSUs were also persisting, the Committee held a third meeting in March 2021 for the central ministries.
On the basis of the discussions during all these meetings, the Committee came out with its observations and recommendations.
source ; the wire
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