IFCI LTD Vs. SANJAY BEHARI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The celebration of independence of our country also came with many challenges, including in the financial sector. The Industrial Finance Corporation of India Ltd. (for short 'IFCI') was the first financial corporation set up soon thereafter, in 1948, with the object of providing for the industrial and infrastructural needs of the new born India and to enable the growth of the economy through medium and long term finance. Passage of time and financial & infrastructural changes resulted in the transformation of IFCI from a statutory corporation to a company under the Indian Companies Act, 1956, in the year 1993. The status of this institution, at present, is of a Government of India Undertaking and a Non-Banking Financial Company, primarily engaged in corporate lending.

(2.) Changing needs found the IFCI with having, possibly, an excess number of employees at various levels. In order to shed the flab, there have been voluntary retirement schemes introduced, from time to time. The present dispute pertains to the Voluntary Retirement Scheme (for short 'VRS') of 2008. The contesting respondents in the present case are thirty-one (31) employees of IFCI who availed of the VRS-2008 on 1.2.2008, and were accordingly relieved from duty on 25.2.2008. There is no dispute that all the benefits under the VRS-2008 were made available to these employees.

(3.) The issue before us is limited in its character as it arises from a claim by these employees that they would be entitled to an enhanced pension on the basis of subsequent revision of pay-scales, which was given retrospective effect, with effect from the time period when the respondents were still employees of the IFCI.