13 years after ex-army man’s death, wife gets pension

CHENNAI: Thirteen years after her husband’s death, 64-year-old A Mariammal from Coimbatore can finally get the full pension due to her, thanks to an order of the Armed Forces Tribunal.
Mariammal’s husband R Arunagiri served in the Army from 1974 to 1994. After he retired as squadron leader, Arunagiri joined Canara Bank and was posted at its Tirunagar branch in Madurai.He passed away on January 19, 1999 while he was still in service. After his death, Mariammal was drawing a family pension of 3,850 from the bank as per its rules and regulations, her lawyer A V K Ezhilmani said.
In July 2001, the Union ministry of personnel, public grievances and pensions issued a notification saying the widow or the next of kin of an Army officer was entitled to receive both civil as well as Army family pensions. But the notification was circulated to all sainik welfare department offices only in April 2006. Mariammal came to know of it two years later and immediately applied for Army family pension in 2008. She was entitled to a pension of 3,950 from the Army, which would have taken her total monthly earning 7,800.
But authorities rejected her request, contending that the rules permitted an individual to receive two pensions only if the civil family pension was received under the Employees Pension Scheme, 1971 or the Employees Pension Scheme, 1995.
She moved the Armed Forces Tribunal challenging the denial of pension. When the matter came up for hearing, Mariammal produced a certificate from Canara Bank dated January 11, 2012 which stated that she was drawing pension from the bank under the Employees Pension Scheme, 1995.
Passing orders, a bench of Justice A C Arumugaperumal Adityan, judicial member, and Lt Gen (retd) R K Chhabra, administrative member, observed that the record officer of the Madras Engineer Group ought to have asked for such a certificate before rejecting Mariammal’s claim. Pointing out that rule 54 of the Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules reiterated the same principle as the central notification, the bench directed that Mariammal be given the Army family pension with effect from July 27, 2001. Authorities were given three months to comply with the order.