A widow is entitled to family pension as her husband was regularized in service, despite bureaucratic delays in implementing that order.

ORDER :

Sanjay Dwivedi, J.

At the request of counsel for the parties, the matter is finally heard.

2. By the instant petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the petitioner is claiming that her husband namely Pritam Vishwakarma, who was a daily wager working in the Water Resources Department, in view of the policy of the Government for regularizing the employees of any department considering the vacancies available even in some other department not a substantive department of the employee was regularized in the Forest Department, but the benefit of family pension is not being granted to her.

3. The Collector, Narsinghpur in pursuance of the said policy of the Government had passed an order on 11.09.1998 (Annexure-RJ/1) regularizing the services of the petitioner’s husband in the Forest Department. The husband of the petitioner died in harness and after his death, the petitioner being the wife has claimed family pension but that claim has been rejected by the authority saying that the husband of the petitioner was a daily wager and, therefore, she cannot be granted family pension and as such, is not entitled for the same.

4. Although the counsel for the petitioner submits that the order of regularization passed by the Collector, Narsinghpur, on 11.09.1998 has neither been cancelled by the respondents-authority nor set aside by any of the Courts and therefore, the said order still exists and the husband of the petitioner in pursuance of the said order cannot be considered to be a daily wager, but his status was regular employee and as such, his wife (present petitioner) is entitled to get family pension.

5. Per contra, Shri Girish Kekre, learned counsel appearing for the respondent/State is relying upon the reply submitted by the respondents and has submitted that the order passed by the Collector was assailed by some of the employees of Forest Department saying that regularization of other daily wagers of other department is not permissible and the Collector was not the competent authority to pass such order of regularization in favour of daily wagers working in the Water Resources Department. The said petition was initially filed before the-then State Administrative Tribunal (for brevity the ‘Tribunal’) and the Tribunal vide order dated 23.09.1998 stayed the operation of order passed by the Collector, Narsinghpur. However, after closing down the-then Tribunal, all the matters pending therein were transmitted to the High Court and then the Original Application i.e. O.A. No.2410 of 1998 was re- registered as W.P. No.12923 of 2003, which got disposed of by the High Court vide order dated 10.02.2004. He has further submitted that in pursuance of the said order, the order of Collector of regularization was not implemented and as such, the husband of the petitioner cannot be considered to be a regular employee and the claim of the petitioner has rightly been rejected. Shri Kekre has further submitted that the husband of the petitioner himself had approached this Court by filing a petition i.e. W.P. No.9261 of 2004 (Annexure-P/3) asking regularization. If the husband of the petitioner was a regular employee, then there was no occasion for him asking regularization from the Court.

6. In response to the same, the counsel for the petitioner has submitted that the husband of the petitioner had no knowledge about the order passed by the Collector, Narsinghpur regularizing his services in the year 1998, therefore, he approached this Court by filing the aforesaid petition.

7. Considering the submissions made by learned c