KODAL BEWA Vs. ORISSA STATE ELECTRICITY BOARD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) A poor widow has been dented her rightful claim for more than two decades inasmuch as her husband died while serving under the Orissa State Electricity Board on October 10, 1971 and the family pension due to her has not yet been made available. What can be more shocking than to find that the paltry amount of Rs. 50.-, which was fixed as family pension payable to her, is yet to be made available? It has, therefore, rightly been said that big corporations are heart-less.

(2.) WHAT has stood in the way of the widow in getting the family pension, according to the State Electricity Board, is that till 1983/84, she could not satisfy the mind of the authority that she was the rightful claimant and it was only in 1983/84 that this could be done and on February 21, 1985 the Asst. to General Superintendent wrote Annexure-A/3 speaking about sanction of family pension at the rate of Rs. 50/- per month with effect from October 11, 1991 requesting petitioner No. 1 "to meet the undersigned to settle up the claim". We fail to understand what settlement was required to pay the pension amount. We also fail to understand as to what satisfaction was required by the authority in question before sanctioning the pension inasmuch as paragraph 2 (c) of the Office Memorandum No. 23301/p dated June 1, 1987, to which our attention has been invited by Shri Nayak in this connection, says that it is the responsibility of the applicant to satisfy the head of the office that she/he is the widow/widower or eligible child of the Government servant. The present is a case where the widow had come up, and we do not find anything on record to show that any reasonable person could have entertained any doubt about the applicant being the widow of the deceased inasmuch as nobody else had come forward to claim the family pension as the widow of the deceased. We are, therefore, of the view that the delay was unconscionable in the present case and petitioner No. 1 is entitled to the pension as already granted from October 11, 1971 along with interest at the rate of 14% per annum.

(3.) IN so far as the settlement of claim is concerned, about which reference has been made in the aforesaid annexue, Shri Nayak has drawn our attention to Rule 157 of the Orissa Pension Rules, 1977 which permits, in case of non-clearnace of Government dues, deduction of an amount equal to the same out of the gratuity. Nothing has been said about pension. The concepts of pension and gratuity are different. It has been clearly held in D. S. Nakara v. Union of India, 1983-I-LLJ-104 (SC) that pension is a matter of right and not a bounty. We, therefore, do not find any reason as to why pension money should not have been paid even after determination of the same in 1985 because of the failure of the petitioner No. 1 to settle up the dues about which mention has been made in Annexure-A/3, and we direct the Board to pay the same to the petitioner forthwith along with interest @ 14% per annum to be calculated from October 11, 1971 till the date of full payment.