60 years after husband’s death in 1965 war, widow gets enhanced pension

About 60 years after her husband was killed in action during the 1965 Indo-Pak War on the western front due to a mine blast, an 87-year-old war widow has finally got her due pensionary benefits following intervention of the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

On the death of her husband, Nater Pal Singh of Rajput Regiment, Anguri Devi was granted special pension (SFP) by the Army. In 1972, the government introduced a new policy for grant of a higher amount of pension with retrospective effect covering all operations from 1947 onwards, termed liberalised family pension (LFP).

When the policy was issued, the husband of the petitioner had already died in 1965, but the authorities failed to give effect to the said policy for the widow. Another policy was issued in January 2001 with financial effect from January 1, 1996 granting enhanced death and disability benefits for operational casualties including deaths or disability due to mine blasts.

Under this policy, the kin of casualty cases were entitled liberalised family pension, but the said policy contained a cut-off date that made it applicable only to cases of death or disability occurring after January 1, 1996. On the other hand, in case of civilian casualties, it was made applicable both to pre- and post-1996 cases. The cut-off date of January 1, 1996 was later struck down by the Supreme Court which allowed financial effect from January 1, 1996.

When the widow approached the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT), it granted her relief citing a similar case decided by the Tribunal earlier, but restricted the arrears to three years prior to filing of the petition on the grounds that she had approached the court after a delay of 54 years.

She challenged the restriction of arrears on two grounds. First, that it was the duty of the authorities to release her pension themselves and the Supreme Court (SC) had made it clear that such benefits would be granted from January 1996, and second, there was no such restriction imposed in the earlier case on which the AFT had relied to grant her relief, which was also based on SC directions.

Setting aside the restriction by the AFT, a division bench of Justice Sureshwar Thakur and Justice Sudeepti Sharma has ruled on November 29 that arrears would have to be released to the war widow in terms of policy of January 2001.