PUNE: The Maharashtra state judicial employees confederation has demanded that the old pension scheme benefits be extended to employees recruited in subordinate courts across the state after 2005, instead of the National Pension Scheme “The NPS does not adequately addresses the future needs of employees and its application is discriminatory as judicial officers recruited after 2005 in subordinate courts are covered by the old pension scheme,” the confederation’s president R K Nasrikar told TOI on Sunday. The issue affects over 7,500 employees recruited after 2005 and 6,000 employees who are to be recruited this year, he said.The subordinate judicial services include all district courts and lower courts in the state and they fall within the ambit of the state department of law and judiciary. The post-2005 recruits, covered by the NPS, include employees such as peons to the office superintendents in the court administration.Nasrikar was in Pune on Sunday to address the state judicial employees confederation’s meeting. “We will start with approaching the local court administrations in each district with our representation to replace the NPS with the old pension scheme for post-2005 recruits. Later, we will finalize the legal options such as filing a petition in the court for getting our demand fulfilled,” Nasrikar said.He pointed out that the old pension scheme continues to apply to the subordinate judicial services employees in West Bengal and Delhi but, the NPS has been introduced in all other states for fresh recruitments. “Our grievance is that merely 60% of the overall deduction toward NPS are returned to the employee post-retirement while the remaining 40% remains invested in government bonds, shares and other securities. This is inadequate in terms of addressing the post-retirement needs of the employee. Hence, we want the NPS to be replaced with the old pension scheme,” Nasrikar said.Nasrikar said, “Judicial services employees are governed by a distinct set of service rules which neither fall within the ambit of the state or the central governments as per provisions under various enactments including our civil manual, Article 235 of the Constitution and Section 21 of the IPC. There are rulings by Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal as well as the superior courts on these aspects and the high court committee’s nod was mandatory for introduction of the NPS to the post-2005 recruits. Already, the judges have been extended the old pension benefits.”

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