Omission from service records alone cannot defeat a widow’s claim for compassionate-appointment consideration.

Arishi Devi claimed to be the legally wedded wife of Arjun Singh Yadav, an Ordnance Factory employee who died in harness on 12 March 2018, leaving her and his mother as surviving family members.

She sought compassionate appointment and pensionary benefits.

The department declined to proceed with her claim because her name did not appear in the employee’s service records or nomination and sought succession documentation; the applicant later submitted a family-member certificate and succession certificate.

Following an earlier Tribunal order directing a decision on her representation, the department rejected her claim.

She challenged that decision in this O.A.

The judgment identifies the challenged order earlier as dated 28.09.2021, but the operative paragraph states that the order dated 28.02.2021 was quashed; this date discrepancy appears in the supplied text.

Whether the applicant’s omission from the deceased employee’s service records or nomination could justify refusing to consider her claim for compassionate appointment and pensionary benefits, despite her asserted status as his wife.

Whether the applicant was entitled to have her claim considered under the applicable service rules notwithstanding the mother’s competing claim to certain dues.

The Tribunal applied Rule 54(14)(b) of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 1972, which includes the wife of a male Government servant within the definition of “family” for the purposes addressed by that rule.

It relied on Jodh Singh v. Union of India, (1980) 4 SCC 306, for the principle that family pension arising from widowhood is a benefit based on status and does not form part of the deceased’s estate.

The Tribunal also stated that nomination serves to identify a recipient for payment of funds and does not, by itself, defeat a wife’s statutory entitlement to consideration for pensionary benefits or compassionate appointment.

The Tribunal found no dispute as to the applicant’s marriage to the deceased and relied on the family-member register and other documents—including residence, ration-card, Aadhaar and caste records—as supporting her status as his wife.

Because the service-record omission was not, in the Tribunal’s view, sufficient to displace that status, it held that the respondents should consider her claims under the applicable rules rather than reject them solely for lack of nomination or entry in the service record.

It directed consideration, not automatic appointment, and separately required consideration of the pensionary-benefit claim.

The Tribunal quashed the impugned order and directed the respondents to place the applicant’s name before the next meeting of the Circle Relaxation Committee for consideration of compassionate appointment, and to consider her claim for pensionary benefits within three months of receiving a certified copy of the order.