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Nitu v. Sheela Rani & Ors.

Civil Appeal · Neutral citation not assigned (Civil Appeal No. 9823 of 2016)Decided 28 Sept 2016
Civil Appeal No. 9823 of 2016
Justice Anil R. Dave · Justice L. Nageswara Rao

Background

Nitu, the widow of a deceased Haryana government employee (Yash Pal), was receiving his family pension under the Punjab Government's Family Pension Scheme, 1964. Yash Pal's mother filed a civil suit seeking a succession certificate to claim a share of the pension. The trial court ruled fully in the widow's favour, but on the mother's revision petition, the High Court of Punjab & Haryana directed that the pension be split 50-50 between the widow and the mother. The widow appealed to the Supreme Court against that split.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that family pension payable under a statutory pension scheme is fundamentally different from ordinary inheritable property, relying on its own earlier decision in Violet Issaac v. Union of India (1991), it reiterated that family pension does not form part of the deceased employee's estate and cannot be divided according to ordinary succession/inheritance rules under the Hindu Succession Act. Under the specific terms of the Scheme, only the person designated as entitled (here, the widow) could receive the pension, so the mother had no legal right to any share of it, even though she might be entitled to a share of any other property Yash Pal left behind. The Court held the High Court erred in directing a 50% split of the pension and set aside that direction, ruling that the entire pension must be paid solely to the widow.

Lesson Learnt

A statutory family pension is not treated as part of a deceased person's general estate for inheritance purposes: it passes strictly according to the rules of the pension scheme itself (usually to the surviving spouse), and other relatives cannot claim a share of it under ordinary succession law, even if they would be entitled to a share of the deceased's other property.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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