The High Court has ordered the Delhi Bhartiya Chikitsa Parishad, which maintains register of Ayurvedic and Unani practitioners here, to introduce pension system for its employees.
Justice A.K. Chawla said that the decision should be taken within six months considering that it requires due consideration of various financial aspects by the Parishad, Delhi government and the Centre.
Justice Chawla ordered the authorities “to take a decision to introduce Pension Scheme to the employees of the Parishad from a date to be fixed and in doing so, the benefit of pension may be extended to the existing and also the retired/superannuated employees, as an exception”.
The High Court’s decision came on a plea by a former employee of the Parishad seeking to extend the pension rules as applicable to employees of Delhi government to the Parishad employees.
Previously, the Parishad was known as the Board of Ayurvedic and Unani System of Medicine (AUSM), which was constituted under East Punjab Ayurvedic and Unani Practitioners Act, 1949. Later, with the introduction of the Delhi Bhartiya Chikitsa Parishad Act, 1998, the Parishad substituted AUSM.
The plea claimed that the rules and regulations governing the employees of Delhi government were applicable to Parishad staff in all service matters. It claimed that the Parishad forms part of the State and hence the conditions of service and the rules and the regulations governing the employees of Delhi government were applicable to the employees of the Parishad.
The Parishad, however, claimed that it was an autonomous body and governed by its own rules and regulations. It also said that currently it was a self sustaining body, which was not beneficiary of grants-in-aid from the Delhi government since financial year 2012-13.
“When employees of the Parishad are shown to be beneficiaries under the Contributory PF Scheme, why they should not be extended the benefit of pension, does require due consideration,” the court said.
“A consideration on the given aspect cannot be denied on the premise that the Parishad, as of now, was a self-sustaining body, without being the beneficiary of grants-in-aid as contended on its behalf. The statutory provisions cannot be ignored on the given premise,” the HC noted.
