COIMBATORE: A provision under the Fundamental Rules governing the staff in Central Government Departments was grossly misinterpreted by authorities at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, to illegally allow retiring professors and non-teaching staff derive higher pension benefits over the past several years.The Fundamental Rules enable the Head of a Government Department (in the case of central educational institutions Director or Vice-Chancellor) to decide on the terminal benefits of retiring employees, in his/her capacity as the “last employer”.Essentially this clause was aimed to benefit those government employees, who get transferred from one government establishment to another, and eventually retire in a department, different from the one in which they had joined service. Since at the time of their retirement, their service files, including his/her option to be in the Contributory Provident Fund cum Gratuity (CPFG) or General Provident Fund cum Family Pension Scheme (GPF) scheme, may not be readily available, the Head of the Government Department in which the staff had last served could decide on his/her terminal benefits. In late 1991, IIT-M Board of Governors as well as its Finance Committee had refused permission to some employees — who had irrevocably opted for the CPFG — to switch over to the lucrative GPF scheme. At that time, the Board had in a different context also said that “The director of the institute in his capacity as the last employer decide the matter of terminal benefits of the retiring employee under the provision of Fundamental Rules”.However, successive IIT-M directors, including incumbent M S Ananth, chose to misinterpret this “last employer” clause and decided to allow employees who had served throughout at the institute alone (and not in multiple Government Departments) to switch over from the CPFG to the GPF scheme. This despite the fact that the Central government, including the Union Ministry for Human Resource Development, under which the IITs function, had repeatedly said that IIT employees, who had as early as 1990 chosen to remain under the CPFG scheme, cannot be permitted to switchover to the GPF scheme under any circumstances.The massive scam has thrown up some searching questions. “At every meeting of the IIT Board of Governors, a representative of the MHRD at the level of Joint Secretary is present. This being the case, how’s it that the HRD Ministry was unaware of the repeated illegal switchover from CPFG to GPF scheme at the IIT Madras when the matter must have been placed before the Board,” a whistleblower wondered. “Why is the MHRD waking up belatedly after the Principal Accountant General’s office had written to it? Why did the Ministry officials delay action on several representations sent to it by various whistleblowers,” he questioned.Another activist raised an important point. “When the IITs had violated the Government of India’s rule and allowed employees to switch over to GPF beyond the deadline for several years, how come auditors of the CAG did not stumble upon this all this long? Were the auditors taken care of to ensure that the scam was not unearthed?” he wondered. Well, that is something that needs to be probed. CURIOUS SWITCHOVERSIIT Madras authorities had bestowed terminal benefit largesse not only on retiring employees but also on those who had died in service. According to a whistleblower, three professors had died in service in recent years. All of them had way back in 1990 voluntarily exercised the option of remaining in the CPFG scheme. However, after their death their names were moved to the GPF files and their dependants draw the benefits of the same. In another case, a professor who had retired in 2001 was transferred to the GPF scheme almost two years after he had left the services of IIT-M. “As he was under the CPFG scheme, he had drawn the entire Provident Fund while retiring. Later when he was allowed to switch over to the GPF scheme, he was asked to remit back around `12 lakh,” he said. Concluded
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