Should Arrogant Officers Be Injected Heartware?

December 3, 2022

An arrogant person considers himself perfect. This is the chief harm of arrogance. It interferes with a person's main task in life - becoming a better person.” - Leo Tolstoy (1828- 1910), Russian writer who is regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time.

Not all judges, especially those in the higher judiciary, do not confine their reading to judicial tomes and law reports. This is reflected in a judgment delivered in the Karnataka High Court and reported by Mehmet Oz and published by The Hindu (22/11/22). Playing on the now ubiquitous computer language and specially “hardware” and “software”, a rhyming-fond judge called for “heartware” while arrogant officials ride roughshod on the rights and eligibilities of citizens and customers. Now, the concerned report.

It is “heartware” which has to take care of pensioners’ interest to ensure that pension amount is credited to their accounts properly and they are not made to run from pillar to post even in this digital age, managed through the computer screens controlled by the software and the hardware, said the High Court of Karnataka.

“Heartware” is persons who handle the accounts of the pensioners and transfer the monthly pension to the accounts using computer system, the court said.

Justice M Nagaprasanna made these observations while admonishing officials of a nationalised bank, which had failed to rectify excess family pension amount credited to the account of a 62-year-old widow for the past six years, blocked her accounts repeatedly, and made her run from pillar to post since 2016, forcing her to move the court.

The court directed the bank not to recover ?2.4 lakh credited in excess to her account from more than 10 years from her, but to recover the amount from the bank officials responsible for such mismanagement. The officials had not only failed to rectify the excess amount credited way back in 2016, despite her request, and failed to redress her grievance.

Petitioner Nalini Devi started receiving the family pension in 2004-05 after the death of her husband, who was working as a second division assistant in the Police Department. She received the full pension that her husband would have got on his superannuation till 2011 as her husband would have retired in 2011. From 2012, she was eligible only for normal family pension.

However, both the government and erstwhile Syndicate Bank continued to credit the full pension amount to her account till 2016, when her account was blocked and she was informed by the bank that she cannot operate the account till ?50,000 credited in excess was recovered.

Neither the bank nor the pension authority acted on her request made in 2016 to debit Rs 50,000 if credited in excess. Meanwhile, the bank was merged with Canara Bank. In 2021, Canara Bank blocked her account stating that ?2.34 lakh was credited in excess to her account.

Her plea to set right the anomalies and allow her to withdraw her monthly pension by recovering excess pension in instalments fell on deaf ears of even higher officers of the bank.

“It is always the folly of the officers who handle such accounts, who either do not act properly or display lackadaisical attitude towards the problems of its customers even if brought to their notice, particularly, in matters concerning pension. Officers who display such remissness should not be tolerated,” the court observed. The court asked the bank to initiate action against officials concerned.

This is an interesting case of official negligence and/or arrogance. The subject is open to many views. What are yours? Your response is welcome in the format given below (pl scroll down a bit). Once again, welcome to reason.

 

Also read:

 

 

 

By John B Monteiro
To submit your article / poem / short story to Daijiworld, please email it to news@daijiworld.com mentioning 'Article/poem submission for daijiworld' in the subject line. Please note the following:

  • The article / poem / short story should be original and previously unpublished in other websites except in the personal blog of the author. We will cross-check the originality of the article, and if found to be copied from another source in whole or in parts without appropriate acknowledgment, the submission will be rejected.
  • The author of the poem / article / short story should include a brief self-introduction limited to 500 characters and his/her recent picture (optional). Pictures relevant to the article may also be sent (optional), provided they are not bound by copyright. Travelogues should be sent along with relevant pictures not sourced from the Internet. Travelogues without relevant pictures will be rejected.
  • In case of a short story / article, the write-up should be at least one-and-a-half pages in word document in Times New Roman font 12 (or, about 700-800 words). Contributors are requested to keep their write-ups limited to a maximum of four pages. Longer write-ups may be sent in parts to publish in installments. Each installment should be sent within a week of the previous installment. A single poem sent for publication should be at least 3/4th of a page in length. Multiple short poems may be submitted for single publication.
  • All submissions should be in Microsoft Word format or text file. Pictures should not be larger than 1000 pixels in width, and of good resolution. Pictures should be attached separately in the mail and may be numbered if the author wants them to be placed in order.
  • Submission of the article / poem / short story does not automatically entail that it would be published. Daijiworld editors will examine each submission and decide on its acceptance/rejection purely based on merit.
  • Daijiworld reserves the right to edit the submission if necessary for grammar and spelling, without compromising on the author's tone and message.
  • Daijiworld reserves the right to reject submissions without prior notice. Mails/calls on the status of the submission will not be entertained. Contributors are requested to be patient.
  • The article / poem / short story should not be targeted directly or indirectly at any individual/group/community. Daijiworld will not assume responsibility for factual errors in the submission.
  • Once accepted, the article / poem / short story will be published as and when we have space. Publication may take up to four weeks from the date of submission of the write-up, depending on the number of submissions we receive. No author will be published twice in succession or twice within a fortnight.
  • Time-bound articles (example, on Mother's Day) should be sent at least a week in advance. Please specify the occasion as well as the date on which you would like it published while sending the write-up.

Leave a Comment

Title: Should Arrogant Officers Be Injected Heartware?



You have 2000 characters left.

Disclaimer:

Please write your correct name and email address. Kindly do not post any personal, abusive, defamatory, infringing, obscene, indecent, discriminatory or unlawful or similar comments. Daijiworld.com will not be responsible for any defamatory message posted under this article.

Please note that sending false messages to insult, defame, intimidate, mislead or deceive people or to intentionally cause public disorder is punishable under law. It is obligatory on Daijiworld to provide the IP address and other details of senders of such comments, to the authority concerned upon request.

Hence, sending offensive comments using daijiworld will be purely at your own risk, and in no way will Daijiworld.com be held responsible.