PRIYANKA JAIN Vs. PUNJAB NATIONAL BANK

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This writ petition assails the constitutional validity of Regulation 2(o)(c) of the Punjab National Bank (Employees) Pension Regulations, 1995 ["the Pension Regulations", hereinafter], "so far as it restricts the benefit of family pension to a deceased employee's daughter, on completing the age of 25 years". The provision reads thus:

(2.) Regulation 2(o)(c) is only a definition clause. It merely defines expressions used in the Pension Regulations. While, classically, a definition clause has no independent substantive operational existence, and becomes meaningful only when it is employed to understand the expression as it occurs in one or the other provision as contained in that statutory, or quasi-statutory instrument, nonetheless, if the definition of an expression, as contained in the definition clause, is itself invidiously discriminatory in nature, so as to violate Articles 14 or 16 of the Constitution of India, it renders itself vulnerable to challenge.

(3.) The grievance of the petitioner stems from the exclusion, in Regulation 2(o)(c) of the Pension Regulations, of unmarried daughters above the age of 25 from the definition of "family" for the purposes of applicability of the Regulations. Thus, the consequence of the impugned clause is that, while an unmarried daughter of a deceased employee of the Bank would be entitled to the benefit of the Pension Regulations and, consequently, to family pension thereunder, she becomes disentitled to family pension if she is over the age of 25, even if she is unmarried and otherwise satisfies the criteria stipulated for entitlement to family pension. Age, and age alone, excludes her. This, according to the petitioner, is completely unconstitutional, and cannot be allowed to remain on the statute book.