President Alvi directs Pakistan Post to refund pension to retiree

Upholding ombudsman's decision, president terms deduction an act of maladministration on postal authority's part

President Arif Alvi on Tuesday directed the Pakistan Post Office Department (Agency) to refund the wrongly deducted pension to one of its retired employees, terming the action an act of maladministration.

In his directives, the president asked for the amount of Rs502,272, deducted in March 2020, from the service dues, according to an official statement.

He issued the directives while rejecting a representation of the organisation against a decision of the federal ombudsman and sought a compliance report of the refund within 45 days.

In his decision, he observed that the aforesaid pensioner’s hard-earned income constituted a fundamental right to livelihood under Article 9 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan 1973, and deprived the applicant of even a part of the amount that could not be countenanced except in accordance with the law.

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President Alvi further noted that the Pensions Act 1871 envisaged that no pension shall be liable to seizure, attachment or sequestration and that the organisation had unjustifiably recovered the amount.

Earlier, the complainant had approached the ombudsman, saying that the amount had been unjustly deducted from his service dues.

The ombudsman, in its decision announced on April 2021, referred the case back to the Pakistan Post to provide relief to the complainant within 45 days. Instead of implementing the decision, the department filed a representation with the president against the aforesaid decision.

Rejecting the representation, President Alvi upheld the said decision and directed the agency to refund the amount along with the applicable bank interest rate within 30 days of the order.