Madras High Court penalizes LIC for suppressing facts
Madras High Court penalizes LIC for suppressing facts
Orders it to pay a fine of Rs.2 lakh
The Madurai bench of the Madras High Court has imposed a penalty on the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) for suppressing facts from the court. It pertained to a case filed by it against the rejection of its request to verify the genuineness of the community certificate of one of its employees in 2019.
The State Level Scrutiny Committee-II of the Department of Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare had rejected the corporation's request seeking an inquiry into the community certificate of an individual T Karthikeyan, who worked as a development officer in LIC.
A similar verification was done in 1990 and Karthikeyan's certificate, which stated that he belonged to the Scheduled Tribe community, was declared genuine. Seven years later, when the corporation sought a re-verification, Karthikeyan challenged it. His petition was allowed by the court holding against re-verification.
However, LIC sought another inquiry claiming that new complaints were received. It was closed by the scrutiny committee in 2019, challenging which the corporation moved the court in 2020.
Meanwhile, Karthikeyan retired from service and approached the court seeking direction to release his pension and other benefits.
The bench of Justice R Subramanian and Justice L Victoria Gowri ruled in favour of Karthikeyan.
The court observed, "If some new and additional material is made available by some person and that too, 15 years after the first verification, we do not think that the beneficiary-employee could be harassed with a third or fourth inquiry on whims and fancies of the employer."
The court also added, "We are dismayed, shocked and surprised at this kind of suppression made by a premier financial institution in the country. We hope that such incidents are not repeated for trifling favours from the court."
It imposed a fine of Rs.2 lakh on LIC, with a direction to pay the amount to a cancer institute in Chennai. The bench further added the LIC was open to recovering the amount from the official who filed the affidavit.
