Punjab & Haryana High Court Awards Rs 1 Lakh Compensation Each To Two Women Denied Pension For Years By State

Observing that pension and pensionary benefits are not the bounty of the State and rather it is a Constitutional Right under Article 300-A, the Punjab & Haryana High Court recently imposed 1 Lakh Cost on Punjab in two different cases for causing delay in releasing pension. The cost is ordered to be paid to the beneficiaries along with the pension amount.

In one case, the widow had been awaiting her pension for 12 years, and in another case, there was a delay of 4 years in releasing the pension of a Craft Teacher.

Justice Jasgurpreet Singh Puri said that India is a “welfare State” and the State and its instrumentalities are supposed to take “appropriate” and “effective” steps for grant of pension and pensionary benefits in accordance with law.

In the first case, the petitioner Surjit Kaur, a widow, filed the petition stating that her husband, who was employed in the irrigation department, BBMB at Sundernagar, passed away in 2011. Following her husband's death, the widow was denied the benefits she was entitled to and was made to wait for 12 years due to the withholding of the no dues certificate.

The court said “action of the BBMB in withholding the No Dues Certificate of the petitioner for a long period of time was absolutely arbitrary and illegal and without any authority of law.”

The BBMB authorities had also imposed a penalty of around 3 lakhs for the petitioner's failure to vacate the house immediately which was allocated to the petitioner's husband. The court declared the action of BBMB to impose the penalty as “not justified”. It opined that the amount was imposed “without following any procedure or any assessment under any law and that too after eight years”.

The petitioner would therefore be entitled for the refund of the aforesaid amount along with interest, it ordered.

In another case, petitioner Paramjit Kaur retired as a Craft Teacher in 2019. It was alleged that pension and gratuity had not been paid without any justification.

The Panchayat Samiti Officer alleged that the petitioner received an excess payment of Rs. 1,36,640/- due to an inadvertent error in the Grade Pay fixation from January 1, 2006, until her retirement, where it was set at Rs. 3600 instead of Rs. 3200. 

The court declared the action as “totally contrary to the law”. There is no allegation of any fraud or mis-representation on the part of the petitioner and rather the State itself granted the grade pay to the petitioner on their own, the court observed.

“Even otherwise also, since the petitioner falls in Cateogory-III and has already retired, no such recovery can be effected from the petitioner,” it added.

The court also observed that it is a “classic case of arbitrariness” on the part of the State towards its pensioner.

“Shockingly” the petitioner, who is a lady, had retired four years ago and she had not been paid pension and gratuity “for no reason whatsoever at all”, it said.

In both the cases the court also observed that,

“Pension and pensionary benefits are not the bounty of the State and rather it is a Constitutional Right under Article 300-A of the Constitution of India.”

The court referred to Deokinandan Prasad versus State of Bihar and others wherein Apex Court dealt with the issue and observed that the, “State cannot withhold the pension and pensionary benefits without the authority of law even though at that point of time the Right to Property was a Fundamental Right under Part-III of the Constitution of India and thereafter with the 44th amendment of the Constitution of India it became a Constitutional Right.”

In light of the above observations in both cases, the court ordered the payment of the pension amount along with 6% simple interest. In the event of failure to comply, an additional 9% will be imposed on the State, said the court.

While disposing of the matters and imposing costs of Rs 1 Lakh, the court granted liberty to the State to “fix the responsibility of the officials concerned who caused delay and recover the costs from them strictly in accordance with law and by following requisite procedure.”

Title: Surjit Kaur v. State of Punjab and others

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