Madras HC rules in favour of SBI Officers' Federation plea

HC asks SBI to deposit the federation association's subscription amount into its system suspense account and credit it in favour of the 14 circle associations of SBI officers

The Madras High Court, reacting to a petition filed by the All India State Bank Officers Federation against the State Bank Of India, asked the latter to deposit the federation association’s subscription amount into its system suspense account and credit it in favour of the 14 circle associations of the SBI officers.

The decision was taken by Justice N Kirubakaran, on a suggestion put forward by the bank that it could pay the amount which the officers had to pay towards the association's subscription for last month from its suspense account and it would adjust the amount from the officers’ salary for the month of October.

According to D Thomas Franco Rajendra Dev, general secretary, SBIOA, Chennai circle, there are around 80,000 officers in the 14 circles, which exclude Chennai and Lucknow, and the total amount to be deducted from these employees towards the subscription of the association would be around Rs 1 crore. The association collects subscription ranging from Rs 100-200 from each individual officers every month.

Under the ‘check off’ facility, which was extended to the Circle Officers Associations since 1970, the bank has been deducting the subscription for the federation from the salary of individual officers, based on their request.

However, the association alleged the facility was withdrawn by the bank through a letter dated September 17, 2013, and the Chennai circle Association filed a writ petition challenging this on September 23, 2013. The court issued an order granting stay of operation of the letter and it was made applicable across the country after the Federation filed another writ petition, it said.

While the Chennai circle has acted in accordance with the High Court order, the association alleges it was not effected in the salaries of employees outside the Chennai circle.

The high court had earlier issued a notice summoning then SBI chairman Pratip Choudhuri to be present in the Court on September 30, which was his last day in the office of chairman of SBI. However, based on a request by the counsel for the bank, the court later asked him to appear on October 10.

Choudhuri appeared before the court today, and the court asked the bank to debit the amount to its system suspense account and credit it in favour of the 14 circle associations of the SBI officers.