Ensure family pension for widowed daughter: High Court

Saurabh Malik

Chandigarh, June 6

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has ruled that a woman is entitled to family pension even if she is widowed or divorced after her father’s death.

Justice Harsimran Singh Sethi also emphasised that the family pension’s function was to ensure subsistence of a widowed or divorced daughter. Denying benefit on the grounds that the employee died before the daughter was divorced or became a widow was arbitrary and illegal.

The ruling came after Justice Sethi’s Bench was told that the petitioner-daughter was not being granted family pension even though she was eligible for it after she became a widow.

The Bench was also told that the petitioner was paid family pension keeping in view the service rendered by her father till she married in 1996. She applied for the restoration of family pension following her husband’s demise in September 2017 as she had no other source

of income.

Opposing the prayer, the counsel for the respondents submitted that widowed or divorced daughters were indeed entitled to the grant of the family pension in accordance with the instructions issued by the Haryana Government. But the daughter “should be a widow or divorced at the time of her father’s death”. The benefit could not be extended to the petitioner as her husband died much after her father’s death.

Justice Sethi asserted that the family pension was to be paid to ensure that a widow or a divorced daughter was able to sustain herself. Justifiable reason was not cited for distinguishing between a daughter already divorced at the time of her father’s death, or subsequently. The primary issue was whether divorced or widowed daughters were entitled to family pension for their sustenance.

Justice Sethi asserted: “Even if a daughter gets divorce after her father’s death or becomes widow after her father’s death, she is entitled to be maintained. The classification being raised to decline the benefit that the petitioner’s father had died before she became widow cannot be a ground to deny the benefit of family pension.”

Before parting with the order, Justice Sethi directed the respondents to restore the family pension to the petitioner from the date of her husband’s death. Directions were also issued to pay arrears. For the purpose, the Bench set an eight-week deadline.

Sustenance must

The intention was to ensure that widowed or divorced daughters were maintained through family pension. It was, as such, required to be granted regardless of whether the daughter was widowed or divorced after her father’s demise or at the time of death. — Justice Harsimran Singh Sethi