Sate of West Bengal vs Sabita Roy - 2023 Supreme(Cal) 1117

Judicial Analysis Court Copy Headnote Facts Arguments Court observation

2023 Supreme(Cal) 1117

HARISH TANDON, SHAMPA SARKAR, RABINDRANATH SAMANTA
Sate of West Bengal – Appellant
Versus
Sabita Roy – Respondent

Advocates:
Advocate Appeared:
For the Appellants : Anirban Ray, Kakali Samajpati, Suman Dey, Bhaskar Prosad Banerjee, Surendra Kumar Sharma.
For the Respondents: Sourav Mitra, Biswarup Biswas, Shreyashi Chowdhury, Salil Kumar Maity, Pinky Saha, S.K. Sharma, Chandar Dutta,

JUDGMENT :

RABINDRANATH SAMANTA, J.

1. The aforesaid matters have been referred to this Bench by the Hon’ble Chief Justice to answer the following reference:

“Whether the benefit of family pension can be extended to unmarried/widowed daughter of an employee who superannuated or died prior to coming in force of the Death-cum-Retirement Benefit Scheme, 1981, which came into effect on and from 1st April, 1981.”

2. Initially, by an order dated April 26, 2022 passed in MAT No. 1518 of 2019 (State of West Bengal and Others vs. Sabita Roy) the reference as above was made by a Division Bench (in which one of us, Rabindranath Samanta, J. was a member).

Thereafter, another Division Bench while hearing MAT No. 608 of 2021 (The Director of Pension and Others vs. Smt. Kabita Sinha and Another), by an order dated 4th July, 2022 upon observing that since a reference had been made by a Division Bench and was awaiting an answer from a Larger Bench as to whether benefit of family pension could be extended to unmarried/ widowed daughter of an employee who superannuated or died prior to coming in force of the Death-cum-Retirement Benefit Scheme, 1981, also referred the matter to a Larger Bench.

3. On the ot