Their representative, Aminah Ahmad, said the government has not shown even an iota of evidence that there are no funds available to them to satisfy its payment obligations.

“The court ought to take judicial notice that the government through its ministers, including the prime minister, had repeatedly stated that it is not in an impecunious state.

“Rather, its financial position is at an all-time high,” she said in an affidavit in reply filed at the High Court yesterday and sighted by FMT.

Aminah said the RM1.7 billion required to settle the payment has been raised as “a spectre only” to cast fear on the court. However, it has not been accompanied by any computation, she added.

“On this score the averment has not been made in good faith and the court must take notice of this,” she said in the filing made by the group’s solicitors Shukor Baljit & Partners.

Aminah said that based on available public records, pension fund KWAP had RM150.1 billion as of 2022 which has continued to grow since then.

She said pension payments are a legal obligation and would not be a waste of time, cost or manpower as government retirees have been owed their rightful entitlement since the Court of Appeal’s ruling on Jan 31, 2022.

Aminah said the government’s hope of succeeding in the appeal was merely speculative and could not be grounds for a stay.

She said any administrative burden rests solely on the government and should not be used to prejudice the pensioners, many of whom are elderly and may not live to enjoy the pension rightfully owed to them.

Aminah said the government’s concern that it may not be able to recover monies paid if the appeal is successful is misplaced as amounts overpaid can be set off against future pension payments.

“Conversely, a stay will deprive (pensioners) of the fruits of litigation,” she said, adding that there were no special circumstances for the court to allow the government’s application to stay the Jan 16 High Court ruling.

Earlier this month, director-general of public service Wan Ahmad Dahlan Abdul Aziz, said the order would not just affect the 56 litigants but 531,976 pensioners or their dependents and will cost the government RM1.7 billion.

He said the balance of convenience favoured the grant of a stay.

He also said computation of the payments had to be done manually and would take time.

Justice Amarjeet Singh will hear the government’s stay application on Monday.

The government filed its notice of appeal on Jan 23, seeking to reverse a High Court order made by Amarjeet.

The judge ruled that a service circular issued in 2016 had the effect of a salary revision for government servants.

As a result, Amarjeet said government pensioners were entitled under the Pensions Adjustment Act 1980 (PAA) to pensions corresponding to the adjusted salary.

“Given the Federal Court ruling (dismissing the government’s appeal), the backdated pension is to be paid beginning January 2022 (the date of the Court of Appeal ruling) until the next salary revision,” he said.

He ordered the director-general of public service to make the pension payments within three months of Jan 16.

On Feb 29, 2024, the High Court granted former civil servant Aminah and her co-applicants leave to commence judicial review proceedings after the attorney-general raised no objection.

The application named the government and the JPA director-general as respondents.

It sought to compel the respondents to implement adjustments to their pensions in accordance with the formula prescribed in Sections 3 and 6 of the PAA before amendments to the law were made in 2013.

Under the old scheme, a retiree’s pension was to be revised based on the prevailing salary of incumbent civil servants in the same grade.

The 2013 amendments introduced a flat-rate annual increment of 2%.

Aminah lost her initial suit in the High Court in 2020.

However, the Court of Appeal in 2022 overturned the decision, ruling that the amendments to the PAA in 2013 were null and void as they had put the applicants in a less favourable position than previously, in breach of Article 147 of the Federal Constitution.

On June 27, 2023, a five-member Federal Court bench upheld the Court of Appeal’s decision.