The Punjab and Haryana High Court has issued a stern order in favour of Laxmi Devi, an 80-year-old widow who has been seeking her husband’s family pension and retirement dues for more than five decades.
Laxmi Devi’s husband, Maha Singh, worked as a Sub-Station Officer with the former Haryana State Electricity Board. He died on January 5, 1974. Although she received an ex gratia payment of Rs 6,026 in the 1970s, she was never given the family pension, gratuity, or other benefits. Her efforts over the years included continuous correspondence and a court case filed in 2005, but no relief was granted.
On November 14, Justice Harpreet Singh Brar heard her writ petition and criticised the long delay. He described the matter as “a saga of administrative apathy and a persistent struggle for rightful dues” and said it reflected “a disheartening and distressing picture of administrative apathy compounded by the petitioner’s advanced age, deteriorating health, and lack of effective legal assistance.”
Justice Brar noted that the widow, who is illiterate and destitute, had been pursuing the case since 1974.
He said that the petitioner, an illiterate and destitute widow, had been forced to run from pillar to post for nearly five decades and had ultimately approached the court in her struggle to secure her late husband’s family pension and other retirement benefits. He added that the case painted a disheartening and distressing picture of administrative apathy, worsened by the petitioner’s advanced age, deteriorating health, and lack of effective legal assistance.
The court examined departmental records and found that Maha Singh had been given a General Provident Fund account, with deductions made during service. This contradicted the state’s recent position that he fell under the Employees’ Provident Fund scheme and therefore was not eligible for a regular pension.
Justice Brar stated that all the departmental communications attached to the writ petition indicated that the petitioner was entitled to the relief claimed. He added that it was incomprehensible how the deceased could have been allotted a GPF account number if he had not been covered under the Board’s GPF/Pension Scheme.
The judge invoked constitutional values, saying that extending relief to a voiceless 80-year-old widow and securing her rights was not a matter of judicial discretion or benevolence but a constitutional imperative rooted in the Preamble and Articles 14, 19, and 21 of the Constitution. He added that whenever courts failed to protect the weakest, the constitutional promise was diminished, but when they rose to defend them, the transformative spirit of the Constitution shone in its truest form.
The High Court has directed the Principal Secretary or the administrative head of the electricity department to personally verify Laxmi Devi’s claims. It ordered that all dues and lawful benefits be released within two months.
The petition was disposed of with the expectation that the widow, who is now paralysed and living in poverty, will finally receive the benefits denied to her for 51 years.