Child adopted post retirement eligible for family pension: HC

High court directs Haryana govt to consider case of woman petitioner from Yamunanagar

CHANDIGARH: The Punjab and Haryana high court has held that a child adopted by a government employee post-retirement is eligible for family pension.

“A childless employee may adopt a child after retirement. Merely because the adoption is post-retirement which is mainly for the purpose of providing dependency and also some light in the evening of the life of the couple. The same would not as such be good enough to deny the said child the benefit of family pension merely on account of the fact that the decision as such to adopt was taken at a belated stage,” the high court bench of justice GS Sandhawalia and justice Vikas Suri observed, directing the Haryana government to consider the case of the petitioner woman for grant of family pension.

The court has now quashed clause (d) of sub-rule (ii) of Rule 4 of the Family Pension Scheme, 1964 (as applicable in Haryana) terming it violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India. It has been quashed to the extent that adopted children post-retirement will also be eligible for family pension.

The court was hearing a plea from Yamunanagar’s 22-yearold woman, Raj Bala, adopted by one Guggu Ram in 1995. He had retired from service in 1993. The mother had died in 2003. The adoption was effected by adopting requisite procedure and succession certificate was issued by a civil judge, Jagadhari.

After death of the adoptive mother and father in 2016, the woman applied for considering her case of family pension, which was rejected in 2017 holding that adoption took place after retirement of her father. Following this, she had moved high court.

It was argued that the scheme discriminates between children adopted before and after retirement and keeps the ones adopted after retirement out of the ambit of family. The rule as such is thus liable to be quashed on grounds of being violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India (equality before law).

In court, the state government had told court that her father never disclosed that the petitioner was his adopted daughter till the time of retirement. The scheme as such bars the persons adopted after retirement, the state had argued.

The court observed that the right to receive pension is on account of the service rendered by the government employee and it is governed by the relevant rules and is not a bounty.

“The same is for maintaining oneself after giving the best of youth of the employee to service and it is an economic security as such for the service rendered not only to the government employee but to dependents who are entitled for the same,” the bench observed.

The court further noted that there is no such dispute regarding the validity of the adoption and that it is a registered adoption deed.