Regarding special Article on VSS-2008 non pensioners issue in english by ChatGPT

 VSS non pensioners Special Article through ChatGPT

**Special Article about VSS-2008 (Non Pensioners)**

*Note: I am presenting once again, for the third time, an important special article about VSS Non-Pensioners that I wrote on July 18, 2020. VSS-2008 Non-Pensioners, please read it carefully.*  

(Tariq)

**April 21, 2024**

**Attention VSS Non-Pensioners**

*Note: I wrote and tweeted this important article on July 18, 2020 (the link to the tweet is provided at the end of this article). I wrote this article about PTCL employees who opted for VSS and retired without being granted a pension, despite having qualified service of ten years or more as per government pension regulations. However, despite these regulations, PTCL dismissed them without a pension. According to federal government pension laws, any retired government employee with qualified service of ten years or more is entitled to a pension under Section AA-374 of the Government Service Regulations (GSR). However, PTCL extended this period from ten years to twenty years or more, depriving thousands of deserving employees with less than 19 years of qualified service of their rightful pension. Many of these non-pensioners approached the High Court and were able to secure their pension, forcing PTCL to back down. One of the most notable cases was Azhar Ali Babar's, which was adjudicated by the Peshawar High Court and is recorded in the 2013 PLC 345 (this decision is also available online). I have previously provided guidelines related to this matter to my non-pensioner colleagues in my articles 137 Part One and Two, and I have pasted both articles below again.*

Respectfully,  

Muhammad Tariq Azhar  

November 21, 2023

**Where can they go? These oppressed 25,000 non-pensioner VSS-retired employees and their widows—who should they plead with? Who should they seek justice from? The cruelty inflicted upon them requires mercy from the Supreme Court. The government and PTCL have violated Article 27 of the Constitution by discriminating against them.**

**PTET's and PTCL's Heinous Act...**

In 2008, the new management of PTCL, under Etisalat, forcibly retired over 25,000 government employees by offering them VSS without a pension. All of these retired employees were legally entitled to a pension based on the basic rule that after a minimum of ten years of qualified service, a pension is due. However, this oppressive management offered an illegal VSS and extended the minimum required qualified service from ten years to twenty years, depriving them of their basic pension rights and blatantly violating Clause 8 of the Constitution of Pakistan, which pertains to fundamental rights. As you all know, a five-member bench of the Supreme Court sealed this issue by dismissing their review petition against the Masood Bhatti case on February 19, 2016, stating that "Although T&K employees working in PTCL cannot be called civil servants, the laws provided under Sections 3 to 22 of the Civil Servants Act 1973, regarding terms and conditions of service, will still apply to them. If PTCL violates these, such employees have full recourse to the High Courts under Article 199 of the Constitution." Nowhere in the Civil Servants Act 1973 does it mention that government employees can be dismissed by offering them a golden handshake or VSS. Instead, Clause 11A simply explains how to adjust staff in case of surplus in an organization (Note: This new Clause 11A was included on April 14, 2001, under Ordinance XX of 2001). PTCL's offer of VSS to these surplus government employees was illegal. Increasing the minimum legal period for a pension from ten years to twenty years was also illegal because it harmed the fundamental right of government employees. Therefore, Clause (2)3 of the Civil Servants Act 1973 prohibited this (Note: This clause was included on March 17, 1996, under Act V of 1996).

Due to the unawareness of these clauses in the Civil Servants Act at that time, the affected PTCL retired employees could not approach the High Courts, otherwise, the situation today would have been different. The PTET Board of Trustees, which had become a puppet in the hands of PTCL, also followed the new management's directives and, in violation of the Trust Deed of April 2, 1994, only granted pensions to retired employees with 20 years or more of qualified service. This Trust Deed was established under Clause 44 of the PT (Reorganization) Act 1996, and it was clearly stated that they had to follow federal pension laws applicable to federal government pensioners. The legal retirement age was 60 years. Pensions were also to be given to those whose jobs were terminated, provided they had ten years or more of qualified service. However, the Board of Trustees violated this Trust Deed and acted in PTCL's favor by not granting pensions to deserving retired employees. A curse upon them. As a result, more than 25,000 retired government employees who worked in PTCL and their families, despite having ten years or more of qualified service, are not receiving pensions, while retired government employees from other departments are receiving pensions even if they were forcibly retired with only ten years of qualified service. This government is, in a way, discriminating against retired government employees from PTCL, which is a clear violation of Article 27 of the Constitution, and no one is holding them accountable, even though the government is the guarantor of the service terms and conditions of PTCL employees, especially regarding pensions. This was stated in the Masood Bhatti case in the Supreme Court, namely Masood Bhatti and others vs. the Federation of Pakistan and others [2012 SCMR 152].

Today, these 25,000 pensioners, among whom thousands of widows have also joined, are living in extreme destitution. Those widows, whose late husbands served PTCL for up to 19 years, were forcibly retired through VSS without a pension. Otherwise, who would voluntarily accept such retirement without a pension? God's punishment is inevitable. Those PTCL and PTET officers who committed such injustice will not escape God's wrath and punishment; their end will be extremely tragic. Our government and our judiciary have no concern for these poor people. They only care about ensuring that no harm comes to Etisalat, the 26% shareholder of PTCL, which has not paid the first installment of $800 million for the past 12 years because every government fears angering the UAE and is enslaved by them.

Long live Pakistan.  

Sincerely,  

Tariq  

July 18, 2020