Pension Is Not Charity By State To Employees But Its Duty: P&H High Court Imposes ₹1 Lakh Cost For Denying Pension To Widow For 12 Yrs
The Punjab & Haryana High Court imposed a cost of Rs. 1 lakh on Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN) and Haryana Vidyut Prasaran Nigam Limited (HVPNL) for denying pension to a widow for over 12 years, observing that, "the pension and pensionary benefits including a family pension is not a charity done by the State and it is a duty of the State" to provide the same.
Justice Jasgurpreet Singh Puri noted, "A poor widow has been denied benefit of family pension for 12 long years because of unjustified reasons as aforesaid and she had to run from pillar to post only because the organization was bifurcated and the petitioner did not file an application before the assigned organization."
The Court said that the State authorities have abdicated their duties by not granting a family pension to a widow to which she was otherwise entitled under the law without any dispute.
These observations were made while hearing the plea under Articles 226, 227 of the Constitution seeking to quash the action of the Haryana State authorities of not granting interest on the arrears of family pension w.e.f. 20.05.2008 to 31.07.2020, and to direct the respondents to grant the same.
Counsel appearing for the petitioner, Sujata Mehta submitted that she is a widow and her husband was working as Reader-cum- Circle Superintendent in the erstwhile Haryana State Electricity Board (HSEB) and he retired from the aforesaid Board on 30.06.1999 and the husband passed away in 2008.
He submitted that Mehta filed an application before the DHBV in 2010, for a grant of family pension but it was intimated to her that since her husband had already retired prior to the bifurcation of HSEB into four organizations in 1999, such cases are to be dealt with by HVPNL authorities and, therefore, necessary correspondence may be made with HVPNL authorities.
Thereafter, she had been running from pillar to post and had also been meeting various officers of the Nigam but the family pension was not sanctioned to the petitioner, submitted the counsel.
After hearing the submissions, the Court observed that If a bifurcation of the Haryana State Electricity Board has been done by way of an Act and thereafter various instructions have been issued as to whose family pension is to be dealt with by which organization, then it was the job and burden of the Boards which have been incorporated.
"It was not the job of a poor widow to have known the aforesaid technicalities as to before which organization she had to apply and the entire onus fell upon the respondents-Statutory Bodies and not upon a poor widow," added the Court.
Justice Puri said that the method adopted by the respondents in putting the petitioner who is a poor widow to run from one door to the other is not only insensitive but is also highly deprecated.
"First of all the petitioner was not supposed to give any application to any agency because she is a widow and there is no dispute of an employee and rather the entire duty was of the respondents to have taken care of the widows whose husband had died for the purpose of grant of family pension. Even if assumingly the petitioner was to file any application, the same has also been done in the year 2010 but no action was taken only on the ground that the petitioner had to file the application before some other organization which was also a bifurcated organization," the Court highlighted.
Reliance was placed on Deokinandan Prasad Vs. State of Bihar and others, [1971(2) SCC 330] to underscore that the right to receive pension and pensionary benefits including family pension is not only a Statutory right but it is also a Constitutional right under Article 300-A of the Constitution of India.
In light of the above, the Court allowed the plea and directed to grant interest @ 6% per annum (simple) to the petitioner which is to be calculated from the date of death of the husband of the petitioner till the date of its actual disbursement within a period of three months.
While disposing of the plea the Court also opined that the widow is entitled to the exemplary costs of Rs. 1 Lakh.
Mr. S.K. Verma, Advocate, for the petitioner.
Mr. Ravinder S. Budhwar, Advocate, for the respondents.
Title: Sujata Mehta v. Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam and others
Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (PH) 272