‘Pension to defence widows even after remarriage’: Veteran Prabhjot Singh Chhatwal PLS Retd.

‘Pension to defence widows even after remarriage’
New Delhi: In a major relief to widows of Army officers and jawans, the Armed Forces Tribunal has issued an order that they would be entitled to family pension even after remarriage.
Presently, only the widows who had remarried after the implementation of the Sixth pay commission on January 1, 2006 are eligible for the pension though the same is not applicable in case of special and liberalised family pension. Terming the present cut-off date condition as "discriminatory and arbitrary", Tribunal chairman Justice A K Mathur said, "We do not see any rationale where if a person had died after January 1, 2006, his widow will get pension whereas if a personnel had died prior to that date, his widow is ineligible for the pension."
The verdict was passed by the Tribunal in three cases filed by widows of service personnel whose pensions were stopped after their remarriage. The applicants are Savita Devi, Meenakshi Devi and Maya Devi. Observing that such condition should not have been imposed, the Tribunal said, "We set aside the order of making discrimination on the basis of cut off date since pension is a welfare measure and for welfare measure there should be no discrimination ...on the basis of artificial cut off dates." "Arrears of all the three applicants may be worked out and paid to them with 12 per cent rate of interest as far as possible within the period of three months," it added.