AMRUTLAL GOKALDAS TANNA Vs. MANAGING DIRECTOR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petition is filed by as many as 16 retired Bank officers of Central Bank of India, who retired between 01.11.1992 to 31.10.1994 praying that the action of the respondents of giving benefit of gratuity on the basis of revised pay scale with effect from 01.11.1994 be quashed and set aside and that the respondents be directed to give benefit of gratuity to the petitioners with effect from 01.07.1993. It is also prayed that, `the act of the respondents in fixing different dates for pay scale and gratuity be declared to be discriminatory, arbitrary, illegal and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India'.

(2.) The facts of the case are that the petitioners having retired from service between 01.11.1992 to 31.10.1994, were paid gratuity on the basis of pay which they were drawing on the date of their retirement. Subsequently, a settlement was arrived at between the management and the Indian Banks' Association (IBA) and accordingly the respondent-Central Bank of India, on July 14, 1995, framed regulations for salary revision for its officer-employees governed by Officers' Service Regulations. These regulations were based on a Joint Note which was signed on 23.06.1995 by the representatives of All India Bank Officers' Confederation (AIBOC), All India Bank Officers' Association (AIBOA) and Indian National Bank Officers' Congress (INBOC), thereby a package, which was worked out to be the basis for salary revision for officers in public sector banks, was accepted. Clause (7) of that Joint Note provides for gratuity, which reads as under:

(3.) It is a settled legal position that any settlement and/or an enactment can provide for `cut off' date. Providing a `cut off' date is not ipso facto an act of discrimination unless it is established that persons belonging to the same class are treated differently. The Honourable the Supreme Court, having found a `cut off' date to be an artificial one, subjecting the people belonging to the same class to different treatments, has struck down such `cut off' dates. But then only because there is a `cut off' date provided the provisions providing for `cut off' date, the decision is not arbitrary one. In any enactment or settlement, on account of various factors, a `cut off' date is required to be provided. These factors are like the financial burden which is going to be caused by the benefits which are to be extended, the overall impact of such burden, which must not destroy the very structure of the institution and its working.