The court established that the bank's regulation, being a special law, overrode the general provisions of the Payment of Gratuity Act, allowing for the postponement of gratuity payment until the conclusion of criminal cases.

Common Order

1. Whether the Regulation framed by the Indian Bank in relation to postponement of payment of gratuity until the conclusion of the disciplinary action or criminal case as the case may be is constitutionally valid? and whether Regulation 46(2) of the Indian Bank (Employees) Pension Regulations, 1995 is ultravires of Section 4(6), 13 and 14 of the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972? is the question that arise for consideration in this batch of writ petitions.

2. The petitioners in this batch of writ petitions are either workers in the clerical cadre or officer cadre and were reaching the age of superannuation on different dates. They were also facing serious criminal cases in various crime numbers before the Special Court constituted. Since they reached the age of superannuation pending disciplinary action, it was postponed due to the pendency of the criminal cases and were paid provisional pension under Regulation 46(1). But with reference to gratuity, they were not paid gratuity under the Indian Bank Employees Gratuity Fund.

3. The following table will show the number of the writ petition, name of the petitioner, their designation, the date of reaching the age of superannuation and the criminal court in which they are facing charges along with the case number, which are as follows:

4. Since certain Regulations were under challenge in these writ petitions, it is necessary to extract the entire Regulations 46(1) and (2) for better appreciation of the issue involved, which are as follows:

"46(1)An employee who has retired on attaining the age of superannuation or otherwise and against whom any departmental or judicial proceedings are instituted or where departmental proceedings are continued, a provisional pension, equal to the maximum pension which would have been admissible to him, would be allowed subject to adjustment against final retirement benefits sanctioned to him, upon conclusion of the proceedings but no recovery shall be made where the pension finally sanctioned is less than the provisional pension or the pension is reduced or withheld etc., either permanently or for a specified period.

(2) In such cases the gratuity shall not be paid to such an employee until the conclusion of the proceedings against him. The gratuity shall be paid to him on conclusion of the proceedings subject to the decision of the proceedings. Any recoveries to be made from an employee shall be adjusted against the amount of gratuity payable.

Explanation - In this chapter.

(a) The expression 'serious crime' includes a crime involving an offence under the Official Secrets Act, 1923 (19 of 1923);

(b) The expression 'grave misconduct' includes the communication or disclosure of any secret Official code or password or any sketch, plan, model, article, note, document or information, such as is mentioned in Section 5 of the Official Secrets Act, 1923 (19 of 1923) which was obtained, while holding office in the Bank so as to prejudicially affect the interest of the general public or the security of the State.

(c) The expression 'fraudulently' shall have the meaning assigned to it under Section 25 Indian Penal Code, 1860 (45 of 1860);

(d) The expression 'criminal breach of trust' shall have the meaning assigned to it Section 405 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (45 of 1860)

(e) The expression 'forgery' shall have the meaning assigned to it under Section 463 of Penal Code, 1860 (45 of 1860)."

(Emphasis added)

5. As the petitioners relied upon Sections 4(6),13 and 14 of the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972, it is necessary to extract those provisions for the sake of convenience which are as follows:

"Section 4(6) Notwithstanding anything contained in sub-section (1),-

(a) the gratuity of an employee, whose services have been terminated for any act, wilful omission or negligence causing any damage or loss to, or destruction of, property belonging to the employer, shall be forfeited to the extent of the damage or loss so caused;

(b) th