Court Rules: No Maternal Family Pension Eligibility for Women Divorced After Father's Death

In the case under discussion, the petitioner's father retired from service in 1996 and passed away in 2003.

The Calcutta High Court has delivered a significant ruling stating that a daughter who divorces her husband after her father's death cannot claim a share in her maternal family pension.

This judgment was issued by a division bench comprising Justice Sujoy Paul and Justice Partha Sarathi Sen on Monday, with the order being uploaded on Tuesday morning.

According to the bench's interpretation, a daughter could receive a pension only if she was financially dependent on her father until his death. However, if she was dependent on her husband when her father passed away, she would not qualify for the pension even if she later returned to her paternal home following divorce.

The High Court overturned the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) decision that had previously granted pension rights to divorced women in similar circumstances. Instead, the court upheld the Central Government's decision to deny pension benefits to the petitioner.

The specifics of this case involve a daughter whose father retired from Central government service in 1996 and died in 2003. At the time of her father's death, the daughter was married. She subsequently divorced in 2016 and, facing financial hardship, applied for her father's pension.

Initially, the CAT had directed the Centre to provide her with a pension after reviewing her application.

The Centre challenged this verdict in the Calcutta High Court. Government lawyer Fatik Chandra Das argued that since the daughter was married and not dependent on her father at the time of his death, she could not later claim entitlement to his pension. Das emphasized that pension eligibility is restricted to family dependents.

In response, the daughter's legal representative, Chandreyi Alam, contended that her client currently faces financial difficulties and, as a daughter, should be entitled to her father's family pension.

The High Court determined that because the daughter's divorce proceedings were not initiated during her father's lifetime and she was married when he died, she would not qualify for the pension.

For context, in 2013, the Centre had issued a directive stating that if a divorce occurs after both parents have died, the daughter would not be eligible for family pension. A 2017 CAT order had clarified that pension would be available if divorce proceedings began while either parent was still alive, provided the daughter's income was below the pension value.