Widows are entitled to family pension where an employee’s regularization is deemed effective before death.

The applicant’s husband was engaged as a casual labourer by the Railways on 10 July 1988 and granted temporary status on 29 October 1989. His services were retrenched in 1994.

He and other similarly situated workers successfully challenged the retrenchment before the CGIT, which directed reinstatement with back wages and other service benefits; the challenge to the award was dismissed by the High Court and the Supreme Court.

The applicant’s husband died in 2010 while the High Court proceedings were pending, and the applicant was substituted in his place.

The respondents regularized the services of other workers covered by the proceedings, but not her husband, citing his death before regularization.

The applicant relied, in part, on the fact that the widow of another similarly situated worker, Dayaram, had received family pension and terminal benefits.

1. Whether the applicant’s husband was entitled to be treated as regularized from the date on which similarly situated workers were regularized, notwithstanding his death before a specific regularization order was issued in his case.

2. Whether, on that basis, the applicant was entitled to family pension and terminal benefits, including in light of the benefits granted to Dayaram’s widow.

The Tribunal considered Rule 75 of the Railway Pension Rules, 1993, under which the applicant claimed family pension, and referred in its conclusion to the Railway Pension Rules, 1993 and the Railway Pension Rules, 2026.

It relied on the principle that similarly situated employees should receive like treatment where the material circumstances and the underlying award are the same; it distinguished Tinku v. State of Haryana, which holds that Article 14 cannot require the perpetuation of an illegality, because the respondents had not shown that the benefits paid to Dayaram’s widow were unlawful or had been set aside.

It also distinguished Smt. Ram Rati Devi v. Union of India, finding its facts different.

The applicant’s reliance on Laxmi Kant Tiwari v. State of U.P. and the principles discussed there concerning pensionary benefits was noted.

The Tribunal found that the applicant’s husband was a party to the proceedings that resulted in the retrenchment order being set aside and that other similarly situated workers had been regularized from 10 July 2002, with back wages and service benefits.

It held that the absence of a separate regularization order in the husband’s case did not defeat the benefit flowing from the award: his services were to be treated as regularized from the same date as those of the other workers, and his death in 2010 did not extinguish the accrued entitlement.

The Tribunal also rejected the respondents’ reliance on Tinku, as no material showed that the benefits granted to Dayaram’s widow were illegal or had been quashed; it considered that circumstance supportive of extending like benefits to the applicant.

It directed the respondents’ competent authority to provide those benefits within four months of receiving a certified copy of the order; any delayed payment would attract interest at the GPF rate from the due date.

No costs were awarded.