Chandigarh: The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Wednesday made it clear that the widow of a former civilian employee of the military would be entitled to an ordinary family pension if she marries her husband's brother and continues to live a communal life and contributes to the support of other living eligible heirs.
While hearing the petition filed by Sukhjeet Kaur, a resident of Fatehgarh Sahib in Punjab, the High Court also clarified that there must not be any distinction between a widow of a person, who died because of reasons attributable to or aggravated by military service, and a person who died in service, since the problems faced by the widows are identical.
This undoubtedly applies even in the instant case if we substitute the word 'government service' for the word 'military service', said a division bench, comprising Justice MS Ramachandra Rao and Justice Sukhvinder Kaur. The petition challenged the 2016 order passed by Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), Chandigarh, in which Sukhjeet Kaur's family pension claim was rejected.
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The petition stated that Sukhjeet Kaur's husband Mohinder Singh had joined the Indian Air Force (IAF) as a combatant member in 1964, but was discharged from service in 1971 on medical grounds and was granted a disability pension. Later, Mohinder joined the IAF as a civilian employee, but he died in 1975 while in service. After some time, Sukhjeet got married to Mahender Singh's brother, but the family pension was stopped by the Centre on the grounds that she had remarried.
