Ct. 8 Supriya Mitra vs Chanchal Kumar Mitra
2022 Latest Caselaw 218 Cal

                                                  FA 67 of 2017
Item-4                                CAN 1 of 2016 (old CAN 6133 of 2016)
         28-01-2022
   sg

           Ct. 8                                   Supriya Mitra
                                                      Versus
                                                Chanchal Kumar Mitra

                                             (Through Video Conference)


                               Mr. Kushal Paul, Adv.
                                                            ...for the appellant

                               Mr. Soumyadeep Biswas, Adv.
                                                        ...for the respondent

By consent of the parties, the appeal and the application are

treated on the day's list and disposed of by this common order.

The short point involved in this appeal is the entitlement of the

appellant to receive the entire death benefits of her deceased husband.

The undisputed facts emerged from the pleadings are that; one

Prabir Kumar Mitra, since deceased, was an employee of CESC

Limited. The said deceased had three issues from his first marriage:

the two plaintiffs and a sister of the plaintiffs. Upon the death of his

first wife, Prabir Kumar Mitra married the appellant herein. The

parties have earlier submitted and confirmed that in respect of the

provident fund dues, Prabir Kumar Mitra had indicated that his two

sons would be entitled to 40% each of the amount lying to his credit

and his second wife would be entitled to the balance 20% thereof. It is

not in dispute that the provident fund money has been shared in such

ratio.

The dispute arose further with regard to the share of gratuity.

The appellant contended that since she was the nominee in terms of

the relevant Rules of the employer, she is entitled to the entirety of the

gratuity sum along with commuted value of the pension. It is not in

dispute that the appellant is a nominee and it is a settled law that a

nominee may receive the said amount on behalf of the deceased as a

custodial for disbursement of the said amount amongst the rightful

claim as per the Law of Succession. The said Rule cannot be led to

defeat such Law of Succession.

We find from record that the appellant had deposited the

principal amount also covered by the decree amounting of Rs.5.50

lakh. We do not find any reason to interfere with the order passed by

the learned Judge as a recent judgment was pronounced on proper

consideration of the law on this point following the ratio in Sarbati

Devi Vs. Usha Devi reported in 1984 (1) SCC 424 and the subsequent

decision Shipra Sengupta Vs. Mridul Sengupta & Ors. reported in

(2009) 6 SCC 724, where it has been made abundantly clear that any

amount in any head can be received by the nominee, but the amount

can be claimed by the heirs of the deceased in accordance with law of

succession governing them. A nominee does not stand on a better

footing than a legal heir who is entitled to retiral dues including

provident fund under the Law of Succession. Widowed wife as the

nominee, cannot claim entire amount of retiral benefits for herself.

In such view of the matter, we do not find any reason to

interfere with the decree passed by the learned Civil Judge (Senior

Division), 2nd Court, Krishnanagar, Nadia.

The appeal fails.

However, the decreetal amount of Rs.5.50 lakh deposited with

the learned Registrar General shall be paid by bank draft/RTGS to the

respondent with accrued interest upon proper identification within ten

days from the date of communication of this order by either of the

parties.

The appeal and the connected application are, accordingly,

disposed of.

Urgent photostat certified copy of this order, if applied for, be

supplied to the parties upon compliance of all requisite formalities.

 (Ajoy Kumar Mukherjee, J.)                          (Soumen Sen, J.)