Denial Of Pension To Martyr’s Mother ‘Highly Unjust’, C’garh High Court Says
According to the defence, the petitioner, Filisita Lakra, mother of the martyred cop, submitted the application to the authorities concerned to extend the benefit of the family pension to her following the death of her husband who had been sanctioned pension.
Raipur: Chhattisgarh high court has directed the state government to provide family pension to the mother of a policeman slain in a Naxal attack, saying that denial of pension to the mother of a martyr is ‘highly unjust’.
Disposing of the petition filed by the mother of 21-year-old police constable Ignatius Lakra, slain in a Naxal attack on December 11, 2002 while serving as a police constable in the tenth battalion of Chhattisgarh armed force (CAF), a division bench comprising Chief Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Ravindra Kumar Agrawal ordered that necessary amendment to the family pension rule should be brought to provide the benefit of pension to the mother of the deceased employee after the death of the father who had been sanctioned pension.
“Denial of pension to the mother of the deceased employee is highly unjust especially when in the present case, the son of the petitioner laid his life in a Naxal attack”, the bench observed.
According to the defence, the petitioner, Filisita Lakra, mother of the martyred cop, submitted the application to the authorities concerned to extend the benefit of the family pension to her following the death of her husband who had been sanctioned pension.
The slain cop’s father, a resident of Jashpur district in Chhattisgarh, passed away in August 2020.
The authorities however rejected her plea, contending that the Chhattisgarh Police Karmachari Varg Asadharan Parivar Nirvritti Niyam, 1965 has no direction to provide family pension to the successor of the deceased pensioner.
The defence counsel described the rule as discriminatory, arguing that the Chhattisgarh Civil Service (Extraordinary Pension) Rules of 1963 extends the benefit of family pension to the mother of the deceased after the death of the pensioner father.
“We have no hesitation in holding that the Act of 1965 should also contain similar provision as provided in the Rules of 1963 which was brought into by amendment in the year 1970 so as to provide the benefit of pension to the mother of the deceased employee after the death of father who had been sanctioned pension”, the court held.
The bench directed the authorities concerned to settle the pension matter of the martyr's mother within six weeks.
