Chennai: In a tragic mix of deceit and spite, the ‘second’ wife of a deceased state official has moved the high court here asking that the family pension being paid to his first wife be withdrawn.
N Leela Padmanabhan had earlier sought the family pension for herself but when her claim was rejected by the Accountant General’s office and her petition dismissed by a single judge of the high court, she moved an appeal before a division bench where, interestingly, she asked for orders to stop the family pension being paid to first wife Swarnalatha from the date of Padmanabhan’s death in June 2003.
Leela in her petition said she had responded to Padmanabhan’s newspaper advertisement inviting marriage proposals saying he was 61 years old and was unmarried.
The two got married in a temple at Tambaram Sanatorium in March 2001 and lived as man and wife. She also produced the marriage invitation to the court while contending that since Padmanabhan, a retired district employment officer, had cheated her by lying he was unmarried while his marriage to Swarnalatha was still in subsistence, the pension granted to him should be withdrawn as per the rules that deny pension to anyone “convicted of a serious crime or is found guilty of grave misconduct”.
Since the pension would be thus withdrawn, the family pension arising out of that after the pensioner’s demise must also be discontinued, Leela contended.
Justices N. Paul Vasanthakumar and R Mahadevan late last month passed order directing the AG’s office to ask the competent authority (in the state government) to decide on Leela’s contention that the family pension being paid to first wife Swarnalatha be discontinued because Padmanabhan had allegedly committed grave misconduct.
It is pertinent to point out here that the same pension rules (Rule 8 of the TN pension rules, 1978) say that the competent authority should serve a notice upon the pensioner specifying the punishment proposed and latter should respond within 15 days. In the present case, the authority cannot serve notice on dead Padmanabhan.
However, the division bench has ordered that the competent authority should hear both the women before passing the verdict.
