AHMADI, C.J. - (1.) THE Judgment of the court was delivered by
(2.) BY this petition brought under Article 32 of the Constitution of India by and on behalf of the retired and in-service employees of Life Insurance Corporation of India ('LIC' for short) who were employees of the erstwhile Oriental government Security Life Assurance Company, Limited, (hereinafter called 'the Company'), certain reliefs in regard to the upward revision of pension and dearness allowance or dearness 456 relief payable thereon and other reliefs related thereto are sought. The brief facts which are relevant for our purpose are as follows. The erstwhile Company had sometime in the year 1908 established a Pension Fund for the Oriental employees which on the nationalisation of life insurance business under the Life Insurance Corporation Act, 1956 (hereinafter called 'the Act') has been renamed Life Insurance Corporation (Oriental) Pension Fund. Thus, the responsibility of managing the said Fund was taken over by the LIC. The Company had framed rules for the administration of the Pension Fund; Rule 10 whereof provided for addition of interest to the said Fund to the extent it would work out to 5% of the amount of the Pension Fund at the close of the year. Rule II permitted additions to the Fund by way of subsidies. Rule 24 provided for minimum pension. The petitioners who are erstwhile Oriental employees and beneficiaries under the said Fund contend that the pension amount admissible under the said scheme is very meagre and, therefore, to ameliorate the conditions of the old and infirm pensioners it is necessary to revise the pension adequately, consistently with Articles 38 and 39 of the Constitution. The petitioners contend that employees other than Oriental employees are paid dearness relief on their pension money while the same benefit is not extended to pensioners governed under the Pension Fund.
(3.) THE Oriental employees is a withering class. At the date of the institution of the petition they numbered 669, all of whom barring two or three had retired, say the petitioners. Under the pension plan worked out for such employees, every employee had to contribute 5% of the substantive monthly salary and the employer had to make a matching grant every six months. So also the employer was required to pay interest on the monies contributed to the Fund so, however, that the total interest added at the end of each year was equivalent to 5% of the total Fund. After the Act, the LIC took over the assets and properties of the erstwhile Company. By reason of Section 8(1 of the Act, the Pension Fund came to be vested in the LIC. THE latter created a trust under Section 8(3, namely, the LIC (Oriental) Pension Fund which is being managed by the LIC under the Rules and Regulations made under the Act. The Pension Fund established in 1908 underwent several changes and before it was taken over by the LIC, the erstwhile Company had started giving dearness allowance to the pensioners at varying rates from Rs. 4.00 to Rs. 8 per month. The increase was granted from the general revenues of the Company and not the Pension Fund. That is because Rule 11 permitted addition to the Fund by way of subsidies by the Company from time to time. The said rule enabled the Company to contribute to the Pension Fund. Accordingly, even after nationalisation, the petitioners received dearness allowance up to about 1959, when the same was merged with pension and the practice of paying dearness allowance or relief on pension was discontinued. The pension was revised in 1980 and 1984 due to availability 457 of funds in the Pension Fund but not by way of deamess increase. Efforts to seek increase in pension have since failed. The petitioners complain that out of the pension paid to them, 6.38% is deducted every month to guarantee the payment of pension for ten years to the pensioners or their legal representatives. Since the cost of living was increasing by leaps and bounds the Oriental pensioners were finding it difficult to survive on their meagre pensions and hence they demanded increase in their pension amount by addition of deamess allowance as in the case of State and central government pensioners. Their plight was even worse because their pensions had not been revised since 1954 and there was actually no increase in the dearness allowance on pensions since the last 33 years or thereabout. They, therefore, approached the government to do away with the 6.38% deduction and enhance the pension consistently with the standard of living and other economic factors relevant to the same by giving dearness allowance. Reliefs in regard to certain other matters like medical allowance, family pension, etc., have also been sought.;