Chandigarh: CAT relief for widow not granted pension

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Chandigarh, September 26

The Chandigarh bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) has set aside an order of the GST Chief Commissioner in Chandigarh through which the widow of an employee was denied family pension on the grounds that the services of her late husband were not regularised till his death.

Ramesh Singh Thakur, Member (J) of the Bench, directed the respondents to grant family pension and other retirement benefits of the employee by notionally treating his service as regular at the time of his death (March 16, 2014).

Santosh Kumari, his widow, had filed an application with CAT through counsels DR Sharma and Rishav Sharma.

She said her husband Swaroop Chand had been working full-time against a sanctioned post, but the salary was paid on a “contingent basis”. In 2001, the department intended to change the service conditions of 21 Group-D employees working as sweepers, gardeners, etc. Her husband and 20 others had approached the tribunal by filing an application, which was disposed of through an order dated August 14, 2002. The respondents were directed to treat the applicants as their “direct employees” and it was held that the applicants would be eligible to be considered for regularisation along with others.

Despite the direction of the tribunal, which attained finality up to the apex court, the respondents did not regularise the service of the applicant’s husband. After his demise, the respondents did not disburse any family pension to her.