Gardener Raman Garase, who worked for 39 years at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, took the extreme step after a long legal battle against the premier institute.
Tragically, this happened on May 1, 2024.
Now, the All India Lawyer's Association For Justice has released a statement demanding justice for Ram Garase. It said that his death "shocks the conscience of the legal fraternity".
Raman and two other workers at the institution had retired on December 31, 2019, and were struggling to acquire the post-retirement gratuity benefits from the IIT administration. Despite several follow-ups and pleas to the administration, they were not paid their dues, informed a statement from the students collective Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle (APPSC IIT Bombay).
What does the statement from All India Lawyer's Association For Justice say?
The way IIT Bombay "used the labour of Shri Raman for his entire working life and then engaged in lengthy litigate to avoid payment of minimum statutory benefits is deeply reprehensible", said the statement.
"Moreover, the standard excuse that after 39 years of service, he remained a temporary employee ineligible for gratuity is a sign of the times," it stated.
The association has also observed that there might be many such cases.
"It is a settled position of law that payment of gratuity is not any bounty, or charity, but is the hard earned money of the employee on the strength of long and meritorious service rendered by him to the employer. We demand that IIT Bombay immediately take steps to release gratuity amount to the family of Shri Raman and to all other retired workers instead of litigating the same using taxpayers money," it went on to say.
The statement, which mentioned the names of President Maitreyi and General Secretary Clifton D' Rozario as the undersigned, concluded with this sentence — "As members of the legal fraternity, we deprecate the use of litigation as a dilatory tactic to deprive workers of their rightful dues."
