SUDHA DAS Vs. COLLECTOR, RAYAGADA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner -Smt. Sudha Das, wife of Lata Kishore Chandra Das has filed this writ application on behalf of her minor children, namely, Mamata Das and Rooja Das, aged about 17 years and 10 years respectively.

(2.) THE petitioner had approached the Orissa Administrative Tribunal, Cuttack Bench, Cuttack in O.A. No.1494 (C) of 2007 on behalf of her minor children praying for grant of pensionary benefits and other statutory dues after the death of her husband who was working as a process Server (Class -IV employee) under opposite parties 1 and 2. The Tribunal disposed the aforesaid O.A. in the following directions:

(3.) LEARNED counsel for the petitioners, inter alia, asserted that the Tribunal ought to have allowed the prayer made before it by the petitioner since the Legal Heir Certificate under Annexure -1, clearly establishes the fact that the petitioner was the second wife of Late Kishore Chandra Das and that Mamata Das and Rooja Das (minor children of the petitioner) for and on whose behalf, the writ application has been filed, are the legitimate children of Late Kishore Chandra Das and are entitled a share of the death -cum -retirement benefits and the properties left by their father Kishore Chandra Das. In this respect, learned counsel for the petitioners placed reliance on a judgment of the Honble Supreme Court in the case of Rameshwari Devi v. State of Bihar and others, AIR 2000 SC 735, in which, it has been laid down that the children born out of a second marriage performed during the subsistence of the previous marriage are entitled to their legal share in the death benefits of the father even though the second marriage is otherwise void in law. The Honble Apex Court came to the aforesaid judgment placed reliance upon interpreting Section 16 of the Hindu Marriage Act, which is quoted hereunder :