In a significant ruling on pension rights within the Armed Forces, the Delhi High Court has refused to interfere with an order of the Armed Forces Tribunal denying family pension to a woman who claimed to be the widow of a deceased Army sepoy. The case raised a sensitive and high-stakes question: can a second wife, whose marriage took place during the subsistence of the first marriage, claim family pension after the first wife’s death?
The Court stepped in to examine whether such a claim could survive under the Pension Regulations for the Army, 1961, and the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, scrutinising the very legality of the marital relationship on which the pension claim rested.
The controversy began when Vidya Devi, who married Late Sepoy Udey Singh between 1970 and 1980, approached authorities seeking family pension after his death in September 2011. She contended that she had lived with him for decades and bore him three children. However, it later emerged that Udey Singh’s first wife, Satwati Devi, was alive at the time of this second marriage and continued to be his legally wedded spouse until her death in May 2012.
While the first wife received family pension after the sepoy’s demise, the petitioner’s claim was rejected in 2013 on the ground that her marriage was void. Before the High Court, her counsel argued that since the first wife had now passed away, the right to family pension should devolve upon her. Heavy reliance was placed on the Supreme Court’s ruling in Shriramabai, where pension was granted to a second wife. The respondents, however, maintained that the Army Pension Regulations permit family pension only to a “lawfully married” widow and that a void marriage confers no such status.
The Court agreed with the respondents in firm terms. It held that the petitioner’s marriage, having been solemnised during the lifetime of the first wife and without any legal dissolution of the first marriage, was “void in law” under Sections 5 and 11 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. Rejecting the argument that the subsequent death of the first wife could validate the second marriage, the Bench observed that “the demise of Smt. Satwati Devi in 2012 would not make the petitioner’s marriage valid.” Citing the Supreme Court’s ruling in Raj Kumari v. Krishan, the Court reiterated: “Normally, pension is given to the legally wedded wife of a deceased employee. By no stretch of imagination one can say that the plaintiff… was the legally wedded wife.”
It further clarified that the reliance on Shriramabai was “misconceived,” as that case involved a divorce prior to the second relationship, an entirely different factual matrix. Finding no legal infirmity in the Tribunal’s decision, the Court concluded that the rejection of family pension was correct and dismissed the petition.
Case Title: Vidya Devi Vs. Union Of India & Ors.
Case No.: W.P.(C) 2333/2026
Coram: Hon'ble. Justice V. Kameswar Rao, Hon'ble. Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora,
Advocate for the Petitioner: Adv. Girindra Kumar Pathak,
Advocate for the Respondent: CGSC. Syed Abdul Haseeb, Nasreen Khatoon G.P.
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