Chandigarh, November 15<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a significant judgment, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has declared invalid the expression \u201cunmarried\u201d in the family pension scheme of 1964 to the extent that it restricted the benefit to the parents of a single officer. The Bench asserted it was violative of Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution, being arbitrary, unreasonable, unjust and unfair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Bench was hearing a petition by a woman, claiming that she was equally entitled to monthly financial assistance and pension upon her son\u2019s death as she was dependent on him. But the same was denied since she did not fall within the definition of \u2018family\u2019 as her son was married.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It may entail sets of permutations and combinations, such as passing away together of both son and daughter-in-law having no child, or the daughter-in-law\u2019s marriage as soon as her husband passed away. In all, the Bench listed seven eventualities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Bench added legislature while enacting the impugned clause, made applicable to the Haryana Financial Assistance to the Dependents of Deceased Government Employees Rules, 2006, did not contemplate these situations which might arise post death of an employee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere seems no intelligible differentia and reasonable rationale to the object of excluding the dependent parents from consideration\u2026. The impugned clause does not seem to achieve the real intent of the rules i.e. tiding off the family from penury. It further does not pass through the test of reasonableness. It is the outcome of non-consideration of the cited permutation and combinations, which have been well considered while promulgating the 2019 Rules,\u201d the Bench observed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It added the state would always be at liberty to take curative steps to remove the defect pointed out by courts. The Bench also held the petitioner disentitled to even a minuscule of financial assistant extended to the widow and children. It observed her husband and other two sons were alive and earning well. Moreover, she had already disowned her now-deceased son and daughter-in-law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Arbitrary clause<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n As per impugned clause, no sooner a child gets married, parents are excluded from the definition of ‘family’. The rule does not contemplate situations which, regarding parents, may arise on the death of their son\/daughter-employee’. \u2014 Division bench<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chandigarh, November 15 In a significant judgment, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has declared invalid the expression \u201cunmarried\u201d in the family pension scheme of 1964 to the extent that it restricted the benefit to the parents of a single officer. The Bench asserted it was violative of Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":88760,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-punjab-news","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dailypunjabtimes.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dailypunjabtimes.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dailypunjabtimes.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dailypunjabtimes.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dailypunjabtimes.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88759"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.dailypunjabtimes.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88761,"href":"https:\/\/www.dailypunjabtimes.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88759\/revisions\/88761"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dailypunjabtimes.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dailypunjabtimes.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dailypunjabtimes.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dailypunjabtimes.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}