SHUKHAVARIYA BAI Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) INVOKING the extraordinary jurisdiction of this Court, the petitioner has called in question the defensibility of the order passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal, Jabalpur Bench, Jabalpur (in short the Tribunal) in O.A. No. 200 of 2006.

(2.) THE facts which are requisite to be stated are that the petitioner 's father late Bahorilal Jaiswal, who was working in the GCF Jabalpur expired after retirement as a consequence of which family pension was sanctioned in favour of his wife Gundi Bai, and the said pension was paid upto October, 1979. As the pension was not paid thereafter, the mother of the petitioner requested many a time to the respondents for payment of family pension and its arrears but the said request was not taken note of and nothing fruitful ensued. As pleaded, the mother of the petitioner breathed her last on 28 August 2004. Being the only surviving legal heir of late Bahorilal, the petitioner knocked at the doors of the Tribunal for hrant of family pension and its arrears. In support of the application, it was set forth before the Tribunal that her mother, Late Gundi Bai, was paid pension upto October, 1979 and after her death, petitioner had made several representations for grant of arrears of family pension. Because of submission of said representations, the account officer, pension, the respondents No. 2 herein, south certain informations from the State bank of India Milouniganj, branch the respondent No. 5 herein. Despite the said communication, no positive response was shown by the respondent No. S initially. Later on, the respondent No. 5 replied that it had not received the pension payment order and other documents regarding the family pension of the petitioners mother. When the situation came to such a pass, the petitioner was compelled to approach the Tribunal. The Tribunal, as contended, misinterpreted Rule 54 of the Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules (hereinafter referred to as the Rules) and declined to entertain the application. Being dissatisfied with and aggrieved by the aforesaid order, the present writ petition has been filed on the backdrop that her mother was entitled to get family pension till her death and as that was arbitrarily denied, she is entitled to the arrears of the same as the sole legal representative and hence, the claim was tenable before the Tribunal.

(3.) A counter -affidavit has been filed by the respondents No.1 to 4 contending, inter alia, that the order passed by the Tribunal is in consonance with sub -rule (6) of Rule 54 of the Rules and the construction placed by the Tribunal on it cannot be found fault with. It is urged that as the petitioner is a married daughter and aged about 45 years, she is not entitled to the family pension. It is the stand in the return that in accordance with the office memorandum, dated 21 August 1970, a Board was constituted for destruction of the old records in February, 2005 and in the said proceedings of the Board, the record from 1932 to 1969 with regard to pension papers, files, service books, etc, were decided to be destroyed and as the pension case in the present case relates to the year 1963, the papers relating to the same were destroyed. A note -sheet taking the decision to destroy such papers and the decision taken therein, have been brought on record as Annexure R1 and -R -2. The name of the father of the petitioner Bahori finds place at Sr. No. 114 whose pension papers were destroyed.