Case: NATIONAL INSURANCE SPECIAL VOLUNTARY RETIRED/RETIRED EMPLOYEES ASSOCIATION Vs. UNITED INDIA INSURANCE CO. LTD.; ORIENTAL INSURANCE COMPANY LIMITED; NEW INDIA INSURANCE COMPANY LIMITED; NATIONAL INSURANCE CO. LTD

2. The appellants areof the respondent Insurance Companies, who initially joined as Assistants, between 1972 to 1980,and went out of service taking advantage of the General Insurance Employees? Special V oluntary Retirement Scheme, 2004 (for shortScheme?). The bone of contention is the plea of these appellants, that they are also entitled to certain benefits arising under the earlier scheme known as The General Insurance (Employees) Pension Scheme, 1995 (for short ‘1995 Scheme?), which inter alia provided that the qualifying service of an employee, retiring under that1995Scheme, would be increased by a period not exceeding five (5) years, subject to certain conditions.3. The concept of providing pension to the employees of the respondent Insurance Companies was introduced for the first time by the 1995 Scheme, which was notified in the Gazette of India on 28.6.1995, but was brought into force from 1.11.1993. The relevant para 30 of the 1995Scheme, which is of concern to the present dispute, is asPension on voluntary retirement(1) At any time after an employee has completed twenty years of qualifying service, he may, by giving notice of not less than ninety days, in writing to the appointing authority, retire from service:xxxx xxxx xxxxThe qualifying service of an employee retiring voluntarily under this paragraph shall be increased by a period not exceeding five years, subject to the condition that the total qualifying service rendered by such employee shall not in any case exceed thirty three years and it does not take him beyond the date of retirement.The aforesaid 1995 Scheme, thus, envisaged an additional notional benefit of five (5) years? service for employees retiring voluntarily under it, with the limitation that the qualifying service rendered by such employees: (i) shall not, in any case, exceed 33 years; and (ii) does not take them beyond the date of retirement.5. The insurance companies were faced with excess manpower, and, thus, to prune the manpower size, a special scheme, being the SVRS2004 Scheme, was introduced for a limited period of sixty (60) days from the date of its notification, that is 1.1.2004. The Scheme was made applicable to permanent,employees eligible to seek special voluntary retirement, provided that they had attained the age of 40 years and had completed the minimum qualifying service of ten (10) years, as on the date of notification. The relevant clauses 5 & 6 read as(1) An employee seeking Special V oluntary Retirement under this Scheme shall been (sic.)entitled to lower of theamount as given below, namely: sixty days salary for each completed year of service, OR, salary for the number of months of remaining service.ia shall be computed on the basis of his/her salary as on the date of relieving. In case, wage revision is effected from a date prior to the date of this notification in the Official Gazette, the benefit of revised pay for the purpose of payment ofwill be allowed.6. Other Benefits (1) An employee opting for the Scheme shall also be eligible for the following benefits in addition to theamount mentioned in para5, namely:(a) Provident Fund;(b)Gratuity as per Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972 (39 of 1972) or gratuity; payable under the Rationalisation scheme, as the case may be;(c) Pension (including commuted value of pension) as per General Insurance (Employees?) Pension Scheme, 1995, if eligible. However, the additional notional benefit of five years of added service as stipulated in para 30 of the said pension scheme shall not be admissible for the purpose of determining the quantum of pension and commutation of pension;An employee who is opting for the scheme shall not be entitled to avail Leave Travel Subsidy and also encashment of leave while in service during the period of sixty days from the date of notification of thisbe read6. It is, thus, quite apparent that clause (c),as part of the overall package, clearly stated that the notional benefit of five (5) years of added service, as stipulated in para 30 of the 1995 Scheme, would not be admissible for purposes of determining the quantum of pension and commutation of pension to such employees who availed retirement under theScheme. Suffice to say that theScheme provided for additional benefits beyond the 1995 Scheme, while simultaneously curtailing this aforesaid aspect, specifically. Despite this clear stipulation, the appellants sought the benefit of these very five (5) added notional years of service, for calculation of their pension, under theScheme, in addition to the other benefits offered. This demand was declined by the respondent Insurance Company.7. There is a background to this lis inter se the parties. On an earlier occasion, the employees availing of theScheme, sought to take advantage of the revision ofThis benefit was denied on the ground that such of the persons who had availed voluntary retirement under theScheme had ceased to be employees of the respondent Insurance Company and were, thus, not entitled to the benefit of revision ofIn coming to the conclusion, various clauses of the benefits given under theScheme were taken note of, including(c) of clause 6(1) reproduced hereinabove. However, what was sought to be taken advantage of was(2) of Clause 5 of theScheme, providing forto be computed on the basis of salary received as on the date of retirement, but also providing that in case of wage revision being effected from a date prior to the date of notification of theScheme in the Official Gazette, the benefit of revised pay for purposes of payment ofwould be allowed. It appears that in the course of justifying their actions, an argument was sought to be advanced on behalf of the insurance company, that apart from the objective of reduction ofthe employees were givenpayment which they were otherwise not entitled to, and were also given an additional amount of pension because a notional period of five (5) years had been added to the number of years served by them (It may be noted, however, that this is contrary to the clear stipulation in the SVRS2004Scheme). This Court opined in favour of the insurance companies, specifically noticing that retrospective rise in salary is only given to thoseManojbhai N. Shah &Ors.Union of India &Ors.(2015) 4 SCCemployees who are in service at the relevant point in time or to those who retired in normal circumstances, and not to those employees opting under such special schemes, like the SVRS 2004 Scheme. No doubt the plea of five (5) years addition for calculation of pension was noticed in the judgement, however, no further discussion of the same formed part of the reasoning.8. The beneficiaries of theScheme sought a review of the judgment predicated on a plea that this Court had incorrectly recorded that persons retiring under theScheme would be given the benefit of five (5) years of extra service for calculation of pension, while actually the same had been specifically excluded. However, such endeavour proved to be fruitless and the review application was dismissed on 7.4.2015.9. That ought to have put the issue at rest, but the insurance companies in their wisdom made a belated attempt to once again urge that issue, by seeking to plead that those observations were only obiter in nature and were factually contrary to the scheme. This application for modification/clarification was, however, refused to be listed by the Registrar as it was found to be a belated endeavour at review. The beneficiaries then filed a Miscellaneous Application which was listed before the Court, but was later withdrawn.10. We have set out the aforesaid controversy because the real substantive ground forming the basis of the plea of the appellants before us is that what was recorded in the judgment in the Manojbhai N. Shah &Ors caseamounted to a concession on the part of the insurance companies, which concession in turn resulted in a finding against them to the effect that, the, insurance companies are bound to give the benefit of additional five (5) years? service, as per the 1995 Scheme, even to those persons who have opted for voluntary retirement under the SVRS1. The aforesaid controversy, after an initial direction to the insurance companies to examine the demands of the retired employees substantively, was examined by the learned Single Judge, when the former came to be rejected by the insurance companies, by the judgment in WP(MD) No.19431/2015 and connected matters dated 8.6.2016.In this judgement, it was opined that in view of the judgment of the Supremehai N. Shahis benefit of additional five (5) years? service, as per the 1995 Scheme was admissible despite the clear terms of clause 6(1)(c) of theScheme. The learned Single Judge also opined that since clause 6(1)(c) of theScheme did not specifically exclude the benefits under para 30(5) of the 1995 Scheme, there was no reason to deny the same to the beneficiaries of the2. The aforesaid judgment was assailed before the learned Division Bench, which, however, opined to the contrary and dismissed the original writ petition filed by the appellants vide judgment dated 17.7.2017 in WA (MD) Nos.It is this judgment which has been assailed before us.

Reasoning:
It has to be appreciated that theScheme is statutory in character, being a Scheme under Sectionof the General Insurance Business (Nationalisation) Act, 1972. It would not be appropriate to add or subtract terms from the Scheme, which has a statutory flavour. There could not have been any concession contrary to the terms of the Scheme, and if such a concession was tenure for the benefit of the retirees, then it had to go through the process of a formal notification. In fact, post the decision inth the parties also understoodthat there was really no question of availing the benefit, contrary to clause 6(1)(c) of theScheme. This is what resulted in the review application, the clarification and modification application, etc. The rejection of the review application filed by the beneficiaries itself shows that post the judgment, clause 6(1)(c) was once again highlighted before the Bench. Despite this, the review application was dismissed, which clearly shows that this fact was not important for finally coming to the conclusion that the salary revision was not applicable to those who had already retired. Learned senior counsel for the appellant himself acknowledged that in the absence of any specific direction in this behalf, they could not have even filed a contempt petition and thus the fresh round of litigation began.18. On the other hand, it was canvassed by the insurance companies that there could be no concession against law [Tripura Goods Transport Association & Anr. v. Commissioner of Taxes &Ors.].Learned counsel also referred to New India Assurance Company Limited v. Raghuvir Singh Narang & Anr.to buttress the plea that if there is a scheme which has a statutory character, then there could not be any contention which could be permissibly raised, contrary to the Scheme. Even qua contractual schemes, if one has availed of the benefits, it would not be open to raise pleas and seek benefits beyond what is stipulated in the Scheme.19. The earlier judgments in Bank of India & Ors. v. O.P . Swarnakar & Ors.And HEC Voluntary Retired Employees Welfare Society & Anr. v. Heavy Engineering Corporation Ltd. &Ors.,dealing with voluntary retirement schemes have been taken note of in the impugned(2015) 5 SCC 747 (1998) 2 SCC 264  para 9(2010) 5 SCC 335 (2003) 2 SCC 721 (2006) 3 SCC 708 judgment, to come to the conclusion that the terms of such schemes must be strictly followed, and the contract cannot be varied. We may add here that apparently there are certain observations in paras 33 and 34 of the impugned order, which may also run contrary to clause 5(1) of theScheme, insofar as the Division Bench has opined that the words ?whichever is less? have been excluded from clause 5 of theScheme. It may be noted that such is not the case, for clause 5 of theScheme, as extracted above, explicitly provides, in clause 5(1), that an employee seeking special voluntary retirement, under the Scheme shall be entitled to the lower of theamounts as mentioned thereunder. We feel it suffice to clarify that what is binding between the parties is the statutory scheme itself, as per its terms.20. We have, thus, no hesitation in coming to the conclusion that statutory or contractual, such voluntary retirement schemes as the SVRS2004 Scheme have to be strictly adhered to, and the very objective of having such Schemes would be defeated, if parts of other Schemes are sought to be imported into such voluntary retirement schemes. What is offered by the employer is a package as contained in the Schemes of voluntary retirement, and that alone would be admissible.21. The issue which arose inWas qua the revision of pay, with retrospective effect. That was the only issue. That issue was decided against the beneficiaries of theScheme. If there are certain observations made by that Bench while deciding so, qua aspects which are not forming the subject matter of that dispute, the same cannotto amount to grant of relief/benefits, contrary to the terms of the Scheme, and that too, in the absence of any specific directions.It is, thus, abundantly clear that nothing more would be given than what is stated in the Scheme, and for that matter, nothing less. If the employees avail of the benefit of such a Scheme with their eyes open, they cannot look here and there, under different schemes, to see what other benefits can be achieved by them, by seeking to take advantage of the more beneficial schemes, while simultaneously enjoying the more beneficial aspects of the