On Second Thought, DoPT Does Not Want To Scrap Pensions Act

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On Second Thought, DoPT Does Not Want To Scrap Pensions Act

New Delhi: The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has decided against scrapping a 145-year-old law, which exempts pension from being “attached or sequestered”, though a bill seeking its abrogation from statute book has already been passed by the Lok Sabha.
Earlier, the DoPT had asked the Law Ministry to include the Pensions Act, 1871 in the repealing bill so it could be removed from the statute book. One of the key provisions of the law is that it exempts pension from attachment by any court. But later, it wrote to the Law Ministry to remove the Act from the repealing bill.
After its passage in the Lok Sabha, the Repealing and Amending (Third) Bill, 2015 is pending in the Rajya Sabha. 
The Law Ministry is the nodal agency for repealing laws which have lost relevance today. 
A senior government functionary said that perhaps the realisation that there is no other law in the country which protects pensions led to decision against scrapping the Act.  After the DoPTs request, the Law Ministry approached the Union Cabinet to clear an official amendment to remove the Pensions Act from the repealing bill.
On March 23, the Union Cabinet cleared the official amendments, paving way for the passage of the bill in the upper house. After being cleared by the Rajya Sabha, the bill will travel back to the Lok Sabha to clear the official amendments.
Section 11 of the Act states that “No Pension granted or continued by government on political considerations, or on account of past services or present infirmities or as a compassionate allowance, and no money due or to become due on account of any such pension or allowance, shall be liable to seizure, attachment or sequestration by process of any court at the instance of a creditor, for any demand against the pensioner, or in satisfaction of a decree or order of any such court.” 
Another official amendment cleared by the Union Cabinet relates to the Appropriation Acts (Repeal) Bill, 2015. The bill, cleared by the Lok Sabha and pending in the Rajya Sabha, seeks to repeal The Punjab Appropriation Act among other laws. But the Punjab Appropriation Act has already been repealed by the Punjab Legislative Assembly and “inadvertently” became part of the Appropriation (Acts) Repeal Bill, 2015. 
The two bills seek to scrap a total of 1,053 Acts which have become redundant and are clogging the statute books.
PTI

Postal Department rationalises postal tariffs after a long struggle by RTI activists

It refers to response dated March 29, 2016 from Department of Posts wherein the Department ultimately rationalised foreign-mail tariffs according to equal tariff-rise for equal rise in slab-weight.

Earlier at several slabs, an article sent in two parts surprisingly used to cost less than if sent in one parcel! It was only after Central Information Commission after being shocked to know that suggestions in this regard went unnoticed for several decades directed for providing working sheets on the logical suggestions.

Even postal authorities were surprised to notice that the suggestions published in a three-decade back media interview dated June 23, 1986 were repeatedly replied that "Suggestions have been noted, and will be considered at next revision of international postal-tariffs", meaning thereby that in practice there is no value of suggestions sent to government departments.

In Focus

Even postal-orders of rupees 1, 2, 5 and 7 were discontinued through RTI petition and print of revised commission of postal orders were affected after more than a decade of revision.

It is time that Speed Post tariffs are also rationalized where presently postal tariffs for ordinary unreliable mail is surprisingly less than fast, reliable and economical Speed Post tariff at many slabs. Speed Post tariffs should be same for throughout the country with equal tariff rise for equal rise in weight slabs. Speed Post tariffs (inclusive of service tax) can be revised as Rs. 20 per every 50 gms or part for complete nation universally.

RTI response reveals that Post Cards and Inland Letters have lost their utility with these highly subsidized postal-items being misused for business-purposes. Inland Letters should be abolished, and Post Cards should only be in sponsored Meghdoot-category to be priced at rupee one also because coins of 25 paise are no more minted, and those of 50-paise are practically out of circulation.

Postal-tariff should be minimum rupee one even for sending registered newspapers. With multi-fold cost-rise in newspaper publication, it is senseless to put Department of Posts under heavy loss by continuing with such heavy subsidy in postal tariffs.

(Mr. Subhash Chandra Agrawal is a noted RTI activist)

Source:http://www.rtiindia.org/forum/172782-postal-department-rationalises-postal-tariffs-after-long.html