HC directs IMC to clear pensioners' due
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, September 12 2015 :
Chief Justice LK Mohapatra of the High Court of Manipur has directed Imphal Municipal Corporation to divert the salary of the Chairman and Councillors and other class one officers for clearing the pending due of pensioners.
A Court order dated August 28, 2015 which is cited as the third directive from the same office reads, "Inspite of several orders passed by this Court, petitioners have not been paid their pensions regularly and huge arrear is yet to be cleared.
IMC has not come with any concrete proposal indicating the manner in which the petitioners can be paid their pension, both the current and the past.
Under the circumstances only option left for the Court is to direct stoppage of payment of salary/honorarium to the Chair- person as well as Councillors and Class I officers of the IMC and divert the said amount for payment of the current pension of the pensioners" .
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In a press meet held today at Manipur Press Club, secretary of Imphal Municipal Pensioners' Association, L Tomba said that after exhausting all resources to re- cover 169 months of pending pension, the association filed a writ petition in the High Court of Manipur in 2003 .
Finally in 2005, the IMC was directed to clear the amount immediately.
Yet the backlog payment still remains.
Hence they sought another directive to from the Court.
However unfortunately the IMC only gave them a verbal assurance without clearing their full dues, he added.
The members feel that such conduct is a disrespect to senior citizens, added another member G Brajabihari Sharma who retired almost ten years ago.
He said, "Only half of my pension amount has been paid till date in the last one decade.
Such treatment has deprived us of our dignity with in our own department and has left us wanting in our old age." The members expressed unhappiness over the dismantling of their temporary shed in the campus which is supposedly the only space for the pensioners to come together.