45 years after soldier’s death on duty, widow gets arrears of special family pension

Vijay Mohan

Chandigarh, August 22

About 45 years after her husband died while on duty, his widow has been granted arrears of special family pension which she had been finally been sanctioned 37 years after the soldier’s demise.

A havildar with the Artillery had died in April 1978 from electric shock while repairing an electric board in the unit lines. A court of inquiry had attributed his death to military service as he was on bonafide military duty at the time of the incident.

His widow forwarded her claim for special family pension to the Principal Controller of Defence Accounts, which was rejected in 1979 on the grounds that the death was due to a wound, injury or disease not attributable to military service. Instead she was sanctioned ordinary family pension which is lesser.

In 2015, she took up her case for grant of special family pension with Army Headquarters. The first appellate committee against the rejection order of 1979 reviewed her case in light of relevant rules and administrative provisions, and accepted her appeal.

She was granted special family pension with effect from October 2015, the date of appeal. She submitted an appeal for grant of special family pension from the date of her husband’s death, but it was rejected on the grounds that she had been advised by the pension authorities to move the first appellate authority in 1979, but she had not done it then. Hence the sanction of pension was from 2015 when she had raised her case.

Thereafter she moved the Armed Forces Tribunal seeking arrears of the special family pension from the date of death of her husband till 2015, along with interest. In her petition, she averred that she was illiterate and not aware of her entitlements and neither was she informed of the rejection letter of 1979.

The Tribunal’s bench comprising Justice Anu Malhotra and Rear Admiral Dhiren Vig observed that it has already been established that her husband’s death is attributable to military service and the merely because the widow did not agitate her rights earlier after rejection of her claim for special family pension does not absolve the authorities from granting her rightful dues.

Referring to earlier judgements of the Supreme Court and High Courts, the Bench said that it is an obligation on an employee to compute the pension and offer the same to the widow as soon as it become due.

Ruling that to confine the grant of pension from the date of appeal was wholly arbitrary, erroneous and violate of constitutional rights, the Bench directed the government to grant her arrears of pension for the earlier 37 years.