India, June 23 -- After dedicating over three decades of their life to Mumbai's public transport system BEST, Ajay Naik and Nitin Herlekar pictured a secure retirement, with plans of investment and a chance to focus on their families. However, their dreams went for a toss after BEST, citing financial difficulties, failed to pay retirement benefits to its employees.

Forced to once more take recourse to the judiciary, 127 retired employees, including ex-chief engineers and ex-assistant general managers, approached the Bombay high court in April 2023 against BMC and BEST for violating their statutory obligations, which included non-payment of encashment of balance leave at the time of retirement, pending bills of encashment of leave while i...