NEW DELHI: Seven judges of the Patna HC on Tuesday rushed to the Supreme Court grumbling that their basic provident fund (GPF) accounts have actually been closed by the accountant general of Bihar, based upon opinion gotten from the ministry of law and justice, throwing them into unpredictability over pension and other retiral benefits.When the petition collectively submitted by Justices Shailendra Singh, Arun Kumar Jha, Jitendra Kumar, Alok Kumar Pandey, Sunil Datta Mishra, Chandra Prakash Singh and Chandra Shekhar Jha was pointed out by advocate Prem Prakash for early hearing, a bench of CJI DY Chandrachud revealed surprise over unexpected interruption of HC judges GPF account and accepted hear their plea on Friday.These judges were designated as additional district and sessions judges in April 2010, being direct employees under Superior Judicial Services of Bihar.
They were appointed as judges of HC in 2015.
When they were judicial officers, they belonged to the National Pension Scheme.
In 2016, the Bihar government had actually framed a policy that those migrating from New Pension Scheme to Old Pension Scheme would be entitled to get back their NPS contribution amount and the exact same can be either kept in their checking account or transferred in the GPF account.On being appointed judges, they were offered a GPF account each, where they transferred NPS contribution amount after withdrawing it.
In November in 2015, the accountant general sought explanation from the ministry of law and justice about the legality of moving the NPS contributions to GPF accounts by these judges.