Oil And Natural Gas Corporation vs Oil And Natural Gas Corporation
2023 Latest Caselaw 932 Tel

         HONOURABLE SRI JUSTICE E.V.VENUGOPAL

                WRIT PETITION No.5661 of 2019

ORDER:

1 Heard Sri Kirthi Teja Kondaveeti, learned counsel for the

petitioner and Sri Kakara Venkata Rao, learned counsel for the

respondents.

2 Petitioner is an association of ONGC Retired Officers'

Association, Hyderabad, and its registered office is situated at UILC

Towers, 8th Floor, ONGC Limited Liaison Office, Basheerbagh,

Hyderabad, vide Registered No.312 of 2018.

3 The case of the petitioner is that the members of the

petitioner association are senior citizens who have retired prior to

01.01.2007 and that though they are entitled to the benefits under

the scheme called ONGC Self Contributory Post Retirement and

Death in service Benefit Scheme 1991 (PRBS-31) which was

formulated for the purpose of providing pension and other

pensionary benefits for the employees who retired / ought to have

retired from the first respondent Corporation or to those executive

employees who died while in service. The object of the above

scheme was to take care of the post retirement needs of the officers

so as to afford them a reasonable standard of living to those

officers who retired from the first respondent Corporation. The said

PRBS-31 was amended and a new Circular was issued i.e. PRBS-

40 dated 18.06.1998 bringing out certain modifications to PRBS-

31. Before carrying out the amendments to PRBS-31, ONGC ought

to have taken approval from the Government. Whereas without

taking prior permission seeking amendment to PRBS-31, ONGC

has rolled out PRBS-40 dated 18.06.1998 bringing modifications to

PRBS-31, which has caused loss to the retired employees to larger

extent. Therefore, the scheme continued till 31.03.2007.

Thereafter, certain amendments were brought to PRBS-31 by

bringing PRBS-64 dated 31.12.2007 which was made applicable

retrospectively from 01.04.2007. Subsequently, ONGC introduced

PRBS-71 dated 26.11.2013 modifying the earlier scheme from

Defined Benefit Scheme to Defined Contributory Pension Scheme.

PRBS-71 was made applicable only from 01.01.2007 onwards.

Therefore, the benefits that were accrued to the retired employees

under PRBS-71 were not given to the employees who have retired

prior to 01.01.2007. The learned counsel for the petitioner further

submitted that PRBS-64 was restricted to those employees who

retired after 01.04.2007, whereas PRBS-71 was further back dated

and it was made applicable to the retirees from 01.01.2007. The

members of the petitioner's association who retired prior to

01.01.2007 are being given very meager amounts in terms of

pension and also the retirement benefits that were paid to them

were calculated without taking into consideration their pay

revision. It is further submitted that the Government promulgated

Employees Pension Scheme (EPS) in the year 1995. The benefits

that were accrued to the members of the petitioner association

were also not given to them till date.

4 The learned counsel for the petitioner further submitted that

the first respondent introduced a scheme called 'Agrani Samman'

Ex-gratia benefit scheme to mitigate the hardship of post

separations by the retired employees. The said scheme was revised

in the year 2003. The ex-gratia benefit is also very meager. For

considering under the said scheme, most of the members of the

petitioner association are not considered as almost all the

members have retired after 1991 and they are enrolled under PRBS

scheme.

5 The learned counsel for the petitioner further submitted that

the first respondent also introduced a scheme called 'Asha Kiran'

on 15.10.2013 for providing financial assistance to the employees

who retired prior to 01.01.2007 for taking care of emergency needs

and it is admissible only in case of loss / damage on account of

natural calamities like flood, cloud burst, fire building collapse,

earth quake, storms, cyclones, tsunami etc. To be considered

under this scheme, a retired employee should not be having a

monthly income more than Rs.10,000/-. Therefore, in all

circumstances, the only source of livelihood for the members of the

petitioner association is under PRBS.

6 The learned counsel for the petitioner vehemently submits

that when the first respondent initially introduced PRBS-31 in the

year 1991, it was sought for providing better retirement life for all

those retirees who retired from the first respondent Corporation.

The amounts that were sanctioned to them post retirement were

reduced by introduction of concept called notional pay. Without

considering all these aspects, the respondents are excluding the

retirees who retired prior to 01.01.2007 in PRBS-71. If EPS-1995

is implemented from 1995 onwards, the members of the petitioner

association would have been getting more pension than they were

actually drawing now.

7 The learned counsel for the petitioner further submitted that

the members of the petitioner association requested the authorities

to implement PRBS-71 to them or to implement the original

scheme PRBS-31 without taking into consideration the notional

pay. The members of the petitioner association made

representations on 21.05.2015, 23.07.2015 and 06.04.2017 to

implement PRBS-71 & EPS-95 scheme which would be more

beneficial than actually what they are drawing to the retirees who

retired prior to 01.01.2007. Hence the present writ petition.

8 On the other hand, the learned counsel for the respondents

preliminarily takes an objection as to the maintainability of the

writ petition on several aspects. Importantly, the first objection is

that the writ petition is not maintainable in the absence of the

particulars of the members of the petitioner association; secondly,

the cause of action arises for filing this writ petition is at Dehradun

where the second respondent Trust is situated and hence the High

Court at Hyderabad has no territorial jurisdiction. The petitioner

association has been formed only for the purpose of filing the

present writ petition in the year 2018. He relied upon the

judgment of the Hon'ble apex Court in Oil and Natural Gas

Commission vs. Utpal Kumar Basu and Ors1 and submits that

the writ petition is not maintainable unless the cause of action to

file the same has arise in full or part within the area of territorial

jurisdiction of the High Court. He further submits that none of the

members of the petitioner association has retired within the

territorial jurisdiction of this Hon'ble Court and that ONGC is not

located in Hyderabad as on the date of filing of the writ petition.

He further submits that the Post Retirement Superannuation

Benefit Scheme (PRBS) was introduced in ONGC with effect from

01.04.1990 with due approval of Ministry of Petroleum and Natural

Gas, Government of India. The employees who retired after

01.04.1991 were eligible for the benefits of the scheme. It was a

self-contributory scheme where only employees' contributed to the

fund. The PRBS Trust is an approved superannuation fund under

Section 2(2), Schedule-4 Part-B of Income Tax Act, 1961. He also

1 (1994) 4 SCC 711

submits that the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE)

guidelines were issued on 26.11.2008 for revision of pay scales of

Board level and below Board level executives and Non-Unionised

Supervisors in Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs)-revision

of scales of pay with effect from 01.01.2007 which inter alia states

about Superannuation benefits. Accordingly DPE guidelines were

issued on 02.04.2009. In view of the stated DPE guidelines, the

PRBS scheme was converted from defined benefit to defined

contribution scheme vide PRBS Circular-71 and that under the

converted scheme, the employer i.e. ONGC also started

contributing to the pension fund of the employee. However, as per

the above DPE guidelines, the case of CPSEs, the Pensionary

benefits were extended to employees retiring on or after 01.01.2007

and thus the employees who retired before 01.01.2007 were not

eligible and may not be considered to be covered under PRBS-71.

Therefore, he submits that in view of the above DPE guidelines, the

members of the petitioner association are not eligible to be covered

under the PRBS-71. Since the petitioners do not fall within the

zone of consideration their case is not considered in accordance

with the guidelines issued by ONGC. Hence prays to dismiss the

writ petition.

9 This Court, after considering the rival contentions, is ceased

of the fact that the representations were made at Dehradun. It

appears that the writ petitioner association was registered only in

the year 2018 and the said representations were made prior to the

registration of the petitioner association and it is also to be noticed

that the office of the respondent is located outside the territorial

jurisdiction of this High Court. Though the action of the

respondents is unfair in not passing any orders on the

representations made by the members of the petitioner association

and sitting over the same is per se illegal, but, upon considering

the fact that none of the members of the petitioner association has

retired within the jurisdiction of this Court, and in the absence of

establishing that the cause of action arose within the territorial

jurisdiction of this High Court and in view of the principle laid

down in Utpal Kumar Basu case, without expressing any opinion

on merits and facts and circumstances of the case, is constrained

to dismiss the writ petition only on the ground of maintainability.

10 Accordingly, the writ petition is dismissed. No order as to

costs. However, this order does not cause any hindrance to the

petitioner to work out its remedies available under law. As a sequel

miscellaneous petitions if any pending in this writ petition shall

also stand dismissed.

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E.V.VENUGOPAL, J.

Date: 24.02.2023 kvsn