As the State Bank of India employees went on an indefinite strike across the country on Monday demanding hike in pension benefits, the Delhi high court in an interim order restrained them from interfering in the working of the bank or causing inconvenience to the public till April 5.
A Division Bench of Justice M K Sharma and Justice Reva Khetrapal restricted the employees from protesting and shouting slogans within 500 metres of any branch of the bank.
The All India Bank Employees Association and the United Forum of Bank Unions have extended their support to the strike. However, offices of seven associate banks of SBI remained open on Monday.
AIBEA general secretary C H Venkatachalam said in Chennai that all members of these unions would participate in protests and demonstrations.
The SBI employees are demanding an increase in the ceiling of pension payable to the employees and the families of deceased employees.
If the government and the SBI management failed to settle the issues or tried to victimise SBI employees, the strike would be extended to all other banks in support of the SBI unions, Venkatachalam warned.
Bank unions claimed that about 250,000 employees, including officers, joined the strike in 9,000 branches after their talks with the chief labour commissioner in Delhi failed on April 1.
All India State Bank Officers' Association general secretary Shantha Raju said in Bangalore that the pension ceiling has been kept unchanged at Rs 4,250 per month based on the salary structure of the1992 revision. Though salary was revised in 1997 and 2002, the pension ceiling had not been hiked.
"We demand hike in pension amount on par with other organisations where they pay pensions amounting to 50 per cent of the last salary drawn," he said.
All India SBI Staff Federation vice president V K Gupta said in Delhi the hike in pension would require only Rs 180 crore (Rs 1.8 billion) a year.
He said hike in pension would be met with the internal resources of SBI as the bank has a total corpus of Rs 8,800 crore (Rs 88 billion).
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