MANGALAM Vs. COLLECTOR OF THANJAVUR AND DIRECTOR OF SARASVATHI MAHAL LIBRARY T M S S M LIBRARY THANJAVUR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) WRIT Petition No.14417 of 1999 is filed by an Association of the Library employees in Saraswathi Mahal Library at Thanjavur. The said Library is managed by the Collector of Thanjavur as its Director and it is registered under the Tamil Nadu Societies Registration Act, 1975. The Society maintains the library and there are 33 regular workers and 6 temporary workers in the said library. With reference to the development grant, the Central Government is providing the same. With reference to the salary of the employees, the State Government is granting annual grant under the maintenance funds. The employees of the library were covered by the Contributory Provident Fund. However, subsequently, they were demanding a pension scheme to be extended on par with the staff of the library run by the State Government and also the Schools run by the School Education Department.

(2.) A Writ Petition was filed before this Court being W.P.No.11499 of 1995 by the very same petitioner Association as well as by several other employees. A batch of Writ Petitions came to be disposed of by this Court by a common order dated 3.2.1997. This Court, after recording the submission on behalf of the petitioners held that it is for the Government of Tamil Nadu to decide whether pension scheme to the employees of the library can be introduced or not. Therefore, a direction was given to the respondents to consider the implementation of Employees' Pension Scheme to the petitioner.

(3.) MR.K.Ramachandran, the learned counsel for the petitioners submitted that when this Court directed the Government to consider and the Government was also informing them periodically that the matter was receiving active consideration by them, they have not settled for the G.O.Ms.No.65, School Education Department and it does not satisfy the demand of the workman. Further, the amount of Rs.635/- granted as pension is hardly enough to maintain the retired staff and therefore the Government should be directed to pay regular pension similar to that of the Government servants.