NHRC intervention ensures the payment of Family Pension, stuck up for 33 years, to the wife of a deceased retired Government employee

The National Human Rights Commission, NHRC, India has ensured that a woman got her family pension, which was being denied to her for the last 33 years since her husband died in 1987. He was a retired ambulance driver in Safdarjung Hospital.

The Pay and Accounts Office of the Safdarjung Hospital has informed the Commission that her family pension order has been issued on 22th June, 2022. Now she is entitled to get a monthly pension of Rs. 9,000. Besides this, the authorization of payment of arrears of family pension to the victim has been granted for the period w.e.f. 03th December, 1987 to 31st March, 2022.

The Commission had registered the case on the base of a complaint by the victim dated 11th March, 2021. In response to the notices of the Commission to the concerned authorities, the Commission was informed that the file through which the memorandum was issued by the department to the victim was destroyed. It was also conveyed that Pension Payment Order was issued in favour of her husband, however, as the family pension column was left as ‘N/A' i.e. unmarried, hence family pension was not authorized.

The Commission did not accept the contention on the ground of any no such rule to deny her family pension just because in the relevant column it may have been inadvertently mentioned as ‘N/A’. The Commission observed that in the event the record is destroyed, the concerned authority is entitled and competent to a create new file on the basis of the copies of the records available with the complainant/applicant and subject to verification of facts that she was the legally wedded wife of the government employee who had died after retirement.

In response, the Commission was informed that a team was constituted for this purpose. The team confirmed that the victim’s status as the legally wedded wife of the deceased, paving the way for her family pension as well as payment of arrears.

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