IMPORTANT POINT
Family pension is not part of an employee's estate and cannot be excluded from dependents through testamentary disposition.

JUDGMENT

K. V. JAYAKUMAR, J

The present OP(CAT) is directed against the order of the Central Administrative Tribunal, Ernakulam dated 03.10.2016 in O.A.No.398/2015.

2. The issue involved in this Original Petition is whether a family pension would come within the purview of property or estate of an employee?.

3. Succinctly, the facts in brief are as follows:

The respondent, S.Sathikumari Amma, is the wife of late Gopalakrishna Pillai, retired Postal Assistant. Late Gopalakrishna Pillai has availed Voluntary Retirement Scheme from service on 01.01.2003 and died on 24.10.2013. Late Gopalakrishna Pillai was receiving pension as per Annexure-A2 Pension Payment Order. At the time of his retirement, the deceased pensioner, Gopalakrisha Pillai, while making his application for pension expressed his intention not to include the applicant, Sathikumari Amma, as a family member. Moreover, the deceased pensioner had submitted a representation on 12.11.1998 with a request to strike off the name of his wife Sathikumari Amma and daughter S.Lakshmi from his service book and other records and to declare that the nomination made in favour of them for pensionary benefits stands cancelled. Thereafter, on 26.12.2002, he also filed another application stating that he had divorced his wife as per order dated 23.11.1991 of the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Kollam in M.C.No.37/1990.

4. The respondent/applicant approached the Central Administrative Tribunal claiming the family pension along with interest. The Tribunal taking note of the contentions of the parties, allowed the original application directing the respondents/Union of India and others to release the family pension to the applicant along with interest until the applicant’s death or till her remarriage.

5. The learned counsel for the respondent/applicant Adv.Sajith Kumar V. supported the order of the Central Administrative Tribunal. He submitted that family pension is not an estate or property of the employee, unlike the pensionary benefits like provident fund and gratuity. Further, the employee cannot struck down the name of his wife and other dependants from the records so as to disentitle them from claiming the said relief.

6. Per contra, Adv.T.V.Vinu, learned Central Government Counsel appearing for the Union of India submitted that the impugned order is patently illegal and unsustainable. The learned Central Government Counsel further submitted that, late Gopalakrishna Pillai, while he was alive, had struck off the names of applicant and her daughter from the pension papers and the deceased pensioner had abandoned his wife and daughter as stated by him in the written submission dated 26.12.2002. Therefore, the Tribunal ought to have rejected the claims of the applicant for family pension.

7. He further submitted that the impugned order of the Tribunal, so far as it direct the payment of interest to the respondent/applicant is liable to be set aside in the interest of justice.

8. We have heard the counsel for the parties and appraised the paper book.

9. The short issue involved in this case is that, whether family pension would come within the purview of property or estate of a deceased employee and whether an employee struck off the names of his wife and other dependants from service records during the subsistence of a valid marriage.

10. In Jodh Singh v. Union of India [(1980)4 SCC 306], the Honourable Supreme Court observed that, what is not payable during the lifetime of the deceased, over which he has no power of disposition, cannot form part of his estate. It is the event of his death that provides eligibility qualification for claiming special family pension. The question involved in Jodh Singh ’s case (supra) was that, whether a special family pension awarded by the President to the widow of a deceased officer who belong to Air Force could be the subject matter of testamentary dis