Judgment 1. The most tragic part of this case is that today when the matter was taken up for consideration, Junior Counsel Mr. Nand Kr. Sinha, who represents the Bihar State Road Transport Corporation (in short, the Corporation), virtually told the court that this matter must either await or adjourned as arguing counsel Mr. RK. Verma has not yet left home for the Court. This is very unfortunate. The Court cannot linger these proceedings. In the circumstances of the present case one son of the petitioner-appellant is virtually struggling with a grafted kidney from his mother. Should anything happen it should not be upon the Court. 2. This matter was considered at length on 7 January, 8 January, 9 January, 12 January and 14 January 2004. It is not that the respondent Corporation or its counsel are unaware on what the case is about. Appearance has been entered. Even the Managing Director of the Corporation was in Court. 3. This case shows the face of Bihar. That face is of low category public servants, without their salaries and wages, living in penury. This category may be in government employment or State public sector employment. An army marches on its stomach it has been said, but this army of employees marches on empty stomachs. Empty stomachs brought the call under the hammer and sickle to workers of the world to unite. This category of employees belongs to the workers in State or State public sector employment. They are in jobs but without payment. They have retired from service but without retiral benefits being delivered. No wages brings abject misery. There doesnt seem to be any earnest effort to solve the problem. 4. The unpaid employees in the State of Bihar have become a phenomenon, and the Statethat is, the government of Bihar-is running away from its employees. This includes the managers of public sector undertakings. The State and the manager of public sector undertakings constitute a very powerful body. It is claimed they have no resources to pay wages, but all the luxuries are available to these administrators, whether they are Ministers of Government, or bureaucrats as administrators. A neo-Nazi type of defense has been manufactured, the like of which Hitler created in declaring that a "Peoples Car" was available, even when it was damned by the Depression, as the worker could never afford it. A neo-Nazi type of defense has been manufactured, the like of which Hitler created in declaring that a "Peoples Car" was available, even when it was damned by the Depression, as the worker could never afford it. The illusion remained a dream until after the war. These Workers in Bihar have also been given an illusion by those who manage the government and the administrators of Public Sector undertakings. It is a devious defense and can be taken only by those who have the money and resources to take it. The workers are told their matters are pending in the courts, the High Court or Supreme Court. The workers are told that schemes are being formulated and committees are looking into their matters and these unpaid workers in employment are living in an illusion and a hope that the Court will come to their rescue. It is unlikely that any solution will occur within the lifetime of a man who has not received his retiral benefits, perhaps he will die with the illusion. This ugly phenomenon of workes in penury, dying in starvation has become a constant factor. The ones who will absolve themselves, and get out of the mess by tenure or retirement, are the politicians and the bureaucrats. The hungry stomachs will remain, and deaths by deprivation will happen. 5. Solutions from the Courts will not happen fast. The solution lies in the hands of those who created the situation, whether this government, or the previous government, or those before that. At present there does not seem to be any will to come to grips with the problem. 6. Fighting with your workers, with no explanation offered for not paying your workers is not socialism. It isnt even capitalism. It is immoral. The Government balks at the Constitutional preamble that India is a Socialist Democratic Republic, but those who run the government call Socialism a dirty word. This is sacrilege. Let the Constitution of India be on their heads. These people have run Socialism aground. This grounding is a Human Rights situation if it inflicts misery, poverty and death. 7. The Government balks at the Constitutional preamble that India is a Socialist Democratic Republic, but those who run the government call Socialism a dirty word. This is sacrilege. Let the Constitution of India be on their heads. These people have run Socialism aground. This grounding is a Human Rights situation if it inflicts misery, poverty and death. 7. Every time a poor lowest category employee in retirement petitions the High Court to seek a relief, for the delivery of his pensionary dues or retiral benefits, a host of counsel who appear for these Corporations have a formula answer for the Court, that the State Corporation is in financial constraints and has no money to pay. Where is the pensioner without pension to go then ? He has hardly any money to come to the High Court, and the lawyer has been compassionate enough either to bring in the case free or at a concessional fee. How far can this person take his litigation ? 8. The second defense taken by Counsel for these State Corporations is that the Supreme Court has ordered that no payments will be considered by the High Court. This is the generality. The Court inquired from such Counsel whether there is any such order that an employee who is on a life support system or laboring under a terminal disease and under an imminent apprehension of the end of his life itseli, that no one will consider such a plea to receive the rightful dues to prolong life as long as one can ? No counsel has shown such an order to the Court. Twisting and misinterpreting the orders of the Supreme Court to run away from all situations and the naked realities of the misery of these people, and trying to silence the High Court is not a solution. The Supreme Court order is about a scheme in reference to a particular Corporation which has been put under an administrator. It restrains, in effect, capital purchases and indiscriminate payment of salaries to employees of overstaffed establishments, many irregularly recruited, so as to find out the genuine ones and make payment from the available funds and furthermore from the State government, to such employees under a martialled scheme. It restrains, in effect, capital purchases and indiscriminate payment of salaries to employees of overstaffed establishments, many irregularly recruited, so as to find out the genuine ones and make payment from the available funds and furthermore from the State government, to such employees under a martialled scheme. And in this context, and rightly, there must not be a duplication nor any contradiction of any order from any other court, so that the scheme so formulated by the Supreme Court goes into execution without complications. There is not a single order of the Supreme Court that a starving retired man where there is no issue on employment, more so if such a man is in the misery of poverty, and further misery of serious diseases within the family, and yet more tragedies of death within the family because of poverty, no one will care for them. This miserable man in poverty is looking for hope from up above. 9. He is without resources in any way, a man from Darbhanga and Bhagalpur in such circumstances cannot come to Patnawho will solve his problem ? Counsel had no answer. Then, is anyone testing the life of life, how long it will go on in the stark reality of what is happening, if life is not fed. Counsel or Corporation had no answer to this also. Would this not be a miserable human rights problem ? The paradox is that it is a matter of starvation in a planned socialist economy half a century after the Republic, State workers must die in povertythis is a situation which should make the managers of such Corporations and the government that runs them hang their heads in shame. Caring for the employees, more so in a situation in which politics and management has run State run Corporations aground, is a matter of responsibility, a matter of corporate morality. It is conveniently forgotten by these State corporate managers and the politics that is behind them which bled these Corporations to their anemic state and even shred the skin of them to show the bare skeleton, that the labour of the workers equity is enmeshed within these Corporations. They are as much part of the juristic entities as those who claim to have managed them, and today no one is prepared to take the responsibility on who was responsible for liquidating these Corporations, bleeding them by slow halal. They are as much part of the juristic entities as those who claim to have managed them, and today no one is prepared to take the responsibility on who was responsible for liquidating these Corporations, bleeding them by slow halal. 10. In this particular case even the Prime Minsiter contributed from the Prime Ministers relief fund. This gesture is not made on the mere askance, obviously the need is genuine. When all this was indicated to the Corporation, yesterday the Court was told that the administrator has indicated that he can take out Rs. 10,000/- for the petitioner. But initially the Court was told, when the Writ was filed, that the Corporation has no money and the Court cannot even examine the matter. From where has the discretion of taking out Rs. 10,000/- come ? This Court is talking about responsibility, not entangled issues in court. This petitioner will not even be .alive, the way things are going, to receive his retiral benefits. Is this not a question of his human rights ? To crown bureaucratic discretion, counsel for the Corporation submitted that he had been instructed to state that the Managing Director has sanctioned a sum of Rs. 25,000/-. And, the cheque was with counsel should the petitioners counsel receive it. Which payment Rs. 10,000/- ? Rs. 25,000/- ? Petitioners counsel submitted the self-respect of his client be not attempted to be purchased in his structured poverty. 11. The Corporation teaches religion and platitude to the worker, what to do and not to do, the right of a man is not an issue. In retirement, his retirement dues should have come as certain as sunset follows sunrise. The Corporation runs away when this proposition is put. Whom is the Corporation testingthe man who is dying in poverty or the Court ? One does not test those who have gone in retirement. Retirement is something one looks forward to. In Bihar, how does one have the energy to retire on an empty stomach ? The Corporation talks of logic of the law to the retired employee in withholding his retirement dues. This is the new dogma of the State run Corporations of Bihar. The message of the Court is, based on the views of Mahatma Gandhi : One does not teach religion to a man in poverty, Collected worRs of Mahatama Gandhi, Volume 35 (1926) page 91. This is the new dogma of the State run Corporations of Bihar. The message of the Court is, based on the views of Mahatma Gandhi : One does not teach religion to a man in poverty, Collected worRs of Mahatama Gandhi, Volume 35 (1926) page 91. You dont talk of law either to a man who has earned his retirement but in a situation involuntary to him he does not get his pension. How does he live ? His pension and retirement dues have to come and it doesnt matter from where. If it is a State Corporation, in a socialist republic, the State is responsible. 12. This matter will have to be looked at from a very new angle, away from the staid formula of the logic of the law. This logic is not going to bring the pension to a man who is waiting for it in illusion, for here comes in the dictum of the great jurist, Oliver Wendal Holmes, who said the life of the law is not logic but experience. Is the answer of the managers of the State Corporations in a socialist republic that the experience under the law is death, unless otherwise evaded by the logic of law. This matter is a pure one of violation of the basic rights of a man, an employee. The State of Bihar and the managers of State-run Corporations may address the Court on why the High Court should not refer these matters to the National Human Rights Commission. The stark reality is, not paying pensions to those entitled to them as of right, is a calculated massacre. 13. After this order had been dictated, counsel for the Corporation submitted that this matter be adjourned for ten days as he will advise the Corporation that the management may call the retired worker, who happens to be the petitioner-appellant, and examine his difficulties and medicare problem and financial assistance face to face. 14. Put up after three weeks as desired by the Corporation and its counsel. 15. List under same heading.