Punjab and Haryana High Court to rescue of dependent parents

Tribune News Service

Saurabh Malik

Chandigarh, April 19

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has ruled that the entitlement for grant of family pension to the dependent parents was required to be seen after the widow or the children were no more eligibile for the grant of benefit.

The assertion by Justice Harsimran Singh Sethi came in case where a dependent mother of a police official, who died in an accident along with his son, was denied family pension after his widow had remarried. The stand of the state in the matter was that the petitioner’s claim for family pension could not be accepted, once it had been extended to the widow.

Justice Sethi asserted that family pension was to be allowed to the dependant to mitigate the family’s financial hardships. The rules governing the service of the employee were to be adhered to while examining the eligibility/entitlement of the family left behind.

Justice Sethi observed that a bare perusal of the rules showed that initially the widow was entitled to family pension, in exclusion to the others, including the children of the deceased employee. She became disentitled in case she remarried. Thereafter, the children became entitled up to a certain age.

Justice Sethi further observed that the interpretation being extended to the rule was that the parents were entitled to grant of family pension in case the benefit had not already been extended at any point of time either to the widow or the children. The parents’ entitlement was to be seen immediately after the employee’s death and not thereafter.

Justice Sethi added that the interpretation did not achieve the purpose behind the family pension. The widow initially was entitled to family pension to the exclusion of others. The children became entitled in case the widow became ineligible. However, when the children, too, become ineligible and the dependent parents were still alive and fulfilled other eligibility criteria, their case could not be ignored merely on the ground that the employee had left behind a widow or children at the time of the death.

“The entitlement for the grant of family pension to the dependent parents needs to be seen after the widow or the children lose their eligibility for the grant of the said benefit also…. Correct interpretation of the rule is that parents cannot be granted the family pension to the exclusion of the widow or the children of the deceased employee. The rule governing the service of the deceased regarding the grant of family pension is being interpreted in an unsustainable manner by the respondents,” Justice Sethi added.

Before parting with the case, Justice Sethi ruled that the widowed mother — the only claimant for family pension after the widow got remarried in December 2008, was entitled to family pension from that date.

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