Poor Widow Was Deprived Of Family Pension For 12 Yrs; Made Her To Run Door To Door: P&H HC Imposes 1L Cost On DHBVN and HVPNL

The Court said that the method adopted by them in putting the poor widow to run from one door to the other was not only insensitive but was also highly deprecated.

The Bench of Justice Jasgurpreet Singh Puri held, “The entire onus fell upon the respondents-Statutory Bodies and not upon a poor widow. 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… Such kind of attitude of the respondents is unsustainable and the consequence of the same is that a poor widow was deprived of family pension for 12 years. Now after 10 years in the year 2019 when she again submitted an application to the DHBVN, the same was forwarded by the DHBVN to the HVPNL which could have been done much earlier.”

Advocate SK Verma appeared for the Petitioner, and Advocate Ravinder S Budhwar appeared for the Respondents.

A writ petition was filed seeking the issuance of a writ of certiorari for quashing the action of the Respondents of not granting interest on the arrears of family pension, with a further prayer to direct the Respondents to grant interest to the petitioner on the arrears of family pension.

The Petition was filed by the widow of a retired employee who worked as Reader-cum- Circle Superintendent in the erstwhile Haryana State Electricity Board. She submitted that she was entitled to the grant of a family pension. She had filed an application before one of the bifurcated organisations, i.e. Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (‘DHBVN’), which, instead of forwarding the application to the concerned organisation, i.e. Haryana Vidyut Prasaran Nigam Limited (‘HVPNL’) told the petitioner in the year 2010 to file a separate application before the HVPNL. Thereafter, the petitioner again submitted an application, and ultimately, in the year 2019, the DHBVN forwarded the application to the HVPNL.

The Court said, “The aforesaid exercise of forwarding of application could have been done in the year 2010 itself but the same has not been done by the DHBVN and instead the petitioner who is a widow was asked to approach another organization. If a bifurcation of the Haryana State Electricity Board has been done by way of an Act of Legislature and thereafter various instructions have been issued as to whose family pension are to be dealt with by which organization, then it was the job and burden of the Boards which have been incorporated and it was not the job of a poor widow to have known the aforesaid technicalities as to before which organization she had to apply.”

The Court, relying on the Supreme Court’s judgment in Deokinandan Prasad Vs. State of Bihar and Ors. (1971), observed 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. It is settled law that the pension and pensionary benefits, including a family pension, are not a charity done by the State, and it is a duty of the State to provide the pension and family pension to its employees and cannot make its employees or especially the widows of the employees run from pillar to post, it added.

The Court held, “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. In this way, the respondents have abdicated their duties by not granting family pension to a widow to which she was otherwise entitled under the law and regarding this there was no dispute and therefore, the petitioner is entitled for exemplary costs which are assessed as Rs.1,00,000/- (One Lac) which shall be shared equally i.e Rs. 50,000/- each by respondents DHBVN and HVPNL.”

Accordingly, the Court allowed the writ petition.

Cause Title: Sujata Mehta v. Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam and Ors. (Neutral Citation: 2024:PHHC:114100)

Appearances:

Petitioner: Advocate SK Verma

Respondents: Advocate Ravinder S Budhwar

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