Kewal Krishan Khajuria
The Finance Department circular on verification of Pensioners’ across the UT of Jammu and Kashmir is ill-conceived, ruthless and unstructured exercise without ascertaining the ground realities and distress it would bring to the senior citizens. The sudden and impromptu issuance of the Circular on Physical Verification of Pensioners in the leading local newspapers and other media by the Director General Accounts and Treasuries without strategizing upon as how the task has to be accomplished is a dictatorial diktat which has prescribed September 30, 2024 as deadline for achieving the target.
The naivety of the Principal Secretary Finance Department Mr. Santosh Vaidya and his deferential commandant Director General Accounts and Treasuries in issuance of the Circular, which calls upon the senior citizens, a sizeable number of whom are confronted with geriatric problems also reflects upon the apathetic and insensitive approach the present dispensation is having towards the elderly citizens of the society.
The timing of issuance of the Circular is also questionable for the specific reasons that when MeT Department is advising people to remain indoors only to escape from severe hot and humid conditions, the anesthetized authorities in Finance Department envisaged upon the idea of making elderly citizens line-up in Treasuries.
A HURRIED RESOLUTION
Without carrying out preliminary and ground preparedness of the Treasuries across Jammu and Kashmir to undertake the gargantuan job, the Circular to physically verify nearly 2.50 lakhs pensioners clearly is a hurried promulgation, probably to showcase the inventive approach to please New Delhi by narrating a bullet-slide of achieving yet another milestone. Jammu and Kashmir is already a Laboratory for babus, who this time are testing their experiments upon the aged masses by forcing them to line-up in Treasuries for their verification in the advanced age of Artificial intelligence. Further, the unbundling of such a grotesque exercise being carried out through ill-equipped and ill-staffed Treasuries, where the posts of Additional Treasury Officers (ATOs) have been strategically kept vacant deserves an explanation.
The Circular has not only impacted directly the nearly 2.5 lakh pensioners but also their entire families, which by conservative estimates constitute nearly 15 per cent of the total population of Jammu and Kashmir. The plight of senior citizens could well be gauged from the fact that one of member of their families have to take off their routine chores for accompanying them to Bank and Treasury.
The Treasuries in Jammu and Kashmir are severely deficient and are operating upon with half of the sanctioned strength in most of cases and in some cases the position of available manpower is acute. These institutions are also not equipped with upgraded computers having facility of in-built web-cam or cameras for capturing the photographs of the pensioners who are turning up there for physical verification. The mechanism devised by the Treasury staff in most of the Treasuries by way of capturing the photographs on their own Andriod mobile phones and then transmitting to the computers, which task consuming lot of time and effort is adding to the fatigue of both the treasury staff and pensioners.
ERRORNEOUS AND ILLEGAL ORDER- IDENTIFICATION VERSUS PHYSICAL PARADE
The Jammu and Kashmir Treasury Code, 2021 nowhere prescribes for physical verification of pensioner but lays emphasis on identification of the pensioner. In this regard, PART (XXVll) (F) -Pension payments, needs to be specifically referred by the authorities wherein the words used is “Identification of Pensioners” rather than physical verification. Further 5.80. (a) is reproduced herein for the reference of one and all which reads, “A pensioner of any description who produces a life certificate signed by some person exercising the powers of a Magistrate under the Criminal Procedure Code or by any Registrar or Sub-Registrar under the Registration Act, or by any pensioned officer who, before retirement, exercised the powers of a Magistrate or by any gazetted officer, or by Munsiff, or by a Police Officer, not below the rank of Sub-Inspector incharge of a Police Station or by a Post Master, a Departmental Sub-Postmaster or an Inspector of Post Offices is exempted from personal appearance”. Nowhere in the Treasury Code, 2021 it is engraved that a pensioner has to line-up before the Treasury Officer that too in the month w.e.f July to September, especially when compliance is afforded by all the pensioners to the J&K Bank Limited by way of production of life certificate. The extra-judicial act of the authorities in issuance of the circular is clearly an arbitrary, erratic and illegal exercise of brute power.
FOREIGN PENSIONERS PHYSICAL VERIFICATION- A CHALLENGE
The Jammu and Kashmir Treasury Code, 2021; Rule 5.80 (b) specifically prescribes for Identification procedure of a non-resident pensioner. The rule states, ” When a pensioner not resident in India draws his pension through a duly authorised agent, the agent must either produce a certificate by a Magistrate, a Notary, a Banker or a Diplomatic Representative of India, on each occasion. That the pensioner was alive on the date to which his pension is claimed, or executes a bond to refund over payment and produce such a certificate as aforesaid at least once a year”. The legal provision nowhere prescribes for physical presence of the pensioner residing out of India. How can the Circular be made applicable to such pensioners. If authorities still insist on physical verification, then would it not be in gross breach of the laid down provisions. Such dictatorial tendencies needs to be dealt by the Hon’ble Courts by taking due cognizance of the audacity of issuance of the Circular for physical verification of pensioners.
SHIFTING OF GOAL-POST FROM VERIFICATION TO RECOVERIES
Understandably to the best of prudence, the clear objective of the circular so issued is Physical presence and ascertainment of the pensioner by the Treasury staff. However, of late the focus now has been placed on recoveries. It is learnt that Treasuries are being asked to look for recoveries from the pensioners and then to coax them to pay these from their sustenance. This is being done despite repeated pronouncement by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in various cases that “No recovery can be effected from pension”. The Finance Department needs to consult the Law Department or at least their Legal Section before directing the Treasuries to work-out recoveries and then extract the same from pension of the pensioner. The Treasuries action in effecting delayed recoveries from the sanctioned pension is nothing short of the extraction of pound of flesh and blood from the feeble populace.
The shifting of goal post from verification to recoveries appears to be crafted plot to justify the arbitrary exercise. Had the original idea been to recover the excess payments, if any made, then this could have been achieved by the re-verification of pension disbursement or by institution of special audit on this aspect. The brewing resentment amongst pensioners has forced authorities to now carpet their errors under the banner of recoveries.
REVERTING BACK TO ERA OF MANUAL PAYMENT
The parading of pensioners’ takes us back to the era of manual payment. During those times outside historic Darbargarh (Mubarak Mandi) in Jammu, the pensioners plight used to be abhorred and loathed by passers’ bye in particular and public in general. The authorities thereafter initiated reforms and provided much needed respite to the pensioners. But the act of the present dispensation is peevish and restrictive. The circular has once again rekindled and refreshed the appalling conditions which prevailed before the disbursement of pension through J&K Bank.
MYOPIC STRATEGY – EVADING USE OF TECHNOLOGY
In the era of artificial intelligence, the verification of pensioners by calling for their physical verification and sadistically relishing their presence in queues is myopic vision of the authorities. The verification would have been seamlessly ensured and bettered by Bio-metric calibration of PPOs with Aadhar (UID) or else by giving option of getting Bio-metric updated through Kidhmat Centres or CSCs or alternatively by asking J&K Bank to link all PPOs with Aadhar card of pensioner. The verification could have been by forwarding pre-devised format and sending the same to the registered phone (mobile ) number of pensioner, who would upload their respective details. However, instead of employing the use of technology, the authorities are addicted to archaic methods.
The lack of knowledge of authorities could well be gauged from the choice of their tools to achieve physical verification of pensioners. Instead of promoting the Jeevan Pramaan application and seeding the same with Aadhar, the authorities ordered capturing of the database of PPOs through Treasury Net application, which portal is not pooled with Jeevan Pramaan application, signaling utter mismanagement. While, huge amounts were spent in popularizing the Jeevan Pramaan application, it is not comprehensible as to why the attainment was not conceived through incorporation of Bio-metrics through Jeevan Pramaan.
BLOW TO GOOD GOVERNANCE
The timing of issuance of Circular is undoubtedly going to have political ramifications for the present dispensation, especially when the Assembly elections are going to be announced anytime in Jammu and Kashmir. It needs to be probed whether the whole conception by those heading the Finance Department was a just coincidence or else a calibrated and purposeful exercise to extend an opportunity to opponents to make it an election issue. Already, during the previous financial year, when Lok Sabha elections were announced, the Finance Department committed a grave blunder by lapsing all the bills presented in the Treasuries in ending March, which caused much furore. Never has it happened in the financial history of Jammu and Kashmir that the Lapsable grants were not released during March to clear the liabilities, whereas Non-Lapsable funds were provided. The authorities have not learnt from the past mistakes and having been left unpunished is now treading with boldness towards new adventures, which may severely impact the political fortunes of present dispensation. The brewing anger amongst pensioners is going to be emitted by them in the Assembly elections.
The issuance of regressive circular on physical verification takes us back to the relatable idiomatic expression coined by Hans Christian Anderson, “The Emperor has No Clothes”, a phrase that originated from the fairy tale- The Emperor’s New Clothes. The expression refers to a situation where something obvious is not acknowledged or discussed, usually because of embarrassment, fear or social pressure. The narration of tale goes that two con men convince an emperor to pay for a non-existent suit of clothes, claiming it is invisible to those who are unfit for their positions. When the emperor parades through the streets in his ” new clothes”, a child finally points out that the emperor is actually naked.
It’s time for the Lieutenant Governor to act now in ordering immediate suspension of the exercise and recall of circular on physical verification of pensioners.
(The writer is a practicing lawyer)
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