TSC suffers blow after court rejects Sh42bn pay appeal
Some of the retired teachers who had TSC over their dues. Photo/FILE
What you need to know:
Court of Appeal judges John Mwera, Jamila Mohammed and Gatembu Kairu declined to give the TSC permission to appeal to the Supreme Court against an earlier High Court judgement.
TSC was ordered by the High Court to pay Sh11.4 billion to the retirees in 2010, an amount estimated to have hit Sh42 billion after accruing interest.
The commission appealed and lost and asked for permission to move to Supreme Court.
The Teachers Service Commission’s (TSC) move to block the payment of more than Sh42 billion to 52,000 retirees has been rejected.
Court of Appeal judges John Mwera, Jamila Mohammed and Gatembu Kairu declined to give the TSC permission to appeal to the Supreme Court against an earlier High Court judgement.
The three-judge Bench found that the application seeking permission was filed three years late and no good explanation for the delay was given. TSC was ordered by the High Court to pay Sh11.4 billion to the retirees in 2010, an amount estimated to have hit Sh42 billion after accruing interest, which it appealed and lost and asked for permission to move to Supreme Court.
“In short, the delay was attributed to government bureaucracy. In our view, that explanation is not satisfactory and does not explain why it took the applicant about three years to make the application,” the judges said.
The judges said the application could have succeeded since it involved a huge sum that will be paid by taxpayers, but dismissed it due to delay in filling the case.
TSC had argued that the delay was caused by many departments in government that were involved in determining practicality and financial impact.
The commission said in an application filed in September last year that the retired teachers’ allowances, salaries and pension arrears up to July 1, 2013 were more than Sh111.4 billion.
This would increase the average national monthly pension to Sh40 billion. The former teachers sued the commission in 2006 for pension from July 1997. The teachers won the case before Justice David Maraga in Nakuru.
The case emanates from an agreement between the Kenya National of Teachers Union (Knut) signed with the government that raised teachers’ salaries and allowances.
The government failed to effect the increment, and in 2003 a further agreement was signed in which the commission agreed to effect the 1997 increment over six years.
But 20 teachers who had received only increment before retiring moved to court in 2006 arguing that their retirement benefits should be based on entire salary increment.
TSC opposed the application, saying that the benefits should be based on the last pay.
High Court ruled in their favour, and directed not only the 20 petitioners, but all teachers to be paid, prompting TSC to file an appeal in 2009.
The TSC challenged the award in the Court of Appeal ruled that it should pay.
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