KANTI PRABHA KARKETTA Vs. PUNJAB NATIONAL BANK

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The issue raised by the petitioner in the present writ application is neither unique nor first of its kind since the question is of deriving benefit from a pension scheme notified by the respondent Bank across the country in the year 1995. The issue for consideration is not the scheme but its applicability to the claimant i.e. a widow of the erstwhile employee. In the pension regulation notified by the Bank, there was a specific Regulation 3(3)(a & b) that pension scheme shall apply to those employees who are in the service of the Bank before the notified date and continue to be so after the notified date, coupled with exercise of an option in writing within 120 days to become a member of the fund.

(2.) In the present case it is the assertion of the petitioner that her husband did exercise his option. Evidence thereof are circumstantial but since those evidence are documents maintained by the Bank itself there will be some presumption in favour of the erstwhile employee and against the respondent Bank. These are Annexures-3 and 4 series.

(3.) How I wish the matter rested at that. The problem is that the Bank in the counter affidavit has taken a categorical stand that there has been no option exercised by the husband of the petitioner in terms of the scheme. Whatever is being produced in support of the claim by the petitioner was no doubt an outcome of a certain omission committed in maintenance of the records at the relevant time since there were large number of employees involved across the country and input and information was trickling in much after the cut-off date as well as due to may be some deliberate omission or mischief at the local level. The documents in question were reflecting the position as if the husband of the petitioner had opted for the scheme. It is their further stand that on a thorough search, no evidence has been thrown up from the service record of the husband of the petitioner or from the centralized pension cell to certify that the husband of the petitioner did opt for the scheme.