The Kerala High Court held that family pension is not an estate or property of the employee and he cannot make a representation that his legally wedded wife or other dependants are not entitled to claim the family pension.

The Original Petition before the High Court was directed against the order of the Central Administrative Tribunal.

The Divison Bench comprising Justice Amit Rawal & Justice K. V. Jayakumar explained, “Family pension is not a debt or security and therefore, the executive authorities cannot insist on the production of succession certificate for the grant of family pension.”

Central Government Counsel T.V.Vinu represented the Applicant while Advocate Sajith Kumar V. represented the Respondents.

Factual Background

The respondent, S.Sathikumari Amma, is the wife of the late Gopalakrishna Pillai, a retired Postal Assistant. Late Gopalakrishna Pillai had availed Voluntary Retirement Scheme from service in 2003 and died in the year 2013. Pillai was receiving pension and at the time of his retirement, he expressed his intention not to include the applicant-respondent as a family member. A request was also raised to strike off the name of his wife Sathikumari Amma and daughter from his service book. He had also filed another application stating that he had divorced his wife.

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.

Issue

The short issue involved in this case was 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.

Reasoning

Referring to the judgments of the Apex Court in Jodh Singh v. Union of India (1980) and Smt. Violet Issaac and others v. Union of India and others (1991), the Bench said, “...it is clear that family pension is not an estate or property of the employee. Therefore, an employee cannot make a representation that his legally wedded wife or other dependants are not entitled to claim the family pension. Family pension unlike the other pensionary benefits like provident fund, gratuity etc, could not be a subject matter of testamentary disposition by the employee during his lifetime. In other words, an employee cannot bequeath his family pension in favour of another nor he can nominate some other person for receiving family pension other than the one who is entitled to it. An employee cannot exclude his wife or children from receiving the family pension on his death, by making an application in this regard.”

The Bench thus dismissed the Petition and upheld the order of the Central Administrative Tribunal.

Cause Title: Union Of India v. S. Sathikumari Amma (Neutral Citation: 2025:KER:2184)

Appearance:

Petitioner: Central Government Counsel T.V.Vinu

Respondent: Advocates Sajith Kumar, Vivek A.V.

Click here to read/download Order


Kerala HCJustice Amit RawalJustice K. V. JayakumarFamily Pension

Tulip Kanth

Assistant Editor

Tulip Kanth is an Assistant Editor at Verdictum having over 5 years of experience in the field of legal journalism and editing. She extensively covers judgments of the Supreme Court, High Courts as well as Tribunals. She has previously worked with a legal publishing website where she oversaw the work of other editors and has also created updates on notifications of different Government Ministries. She holds an English Honours Degree from SGTB Khalsa College, Delhi University and has completed her LLB course with specialisation in Corporate Law from Amity University.