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The Hon'ble Supreme Court of India upheld the judgment of the Hon'ble Panjab & Haryana High Court in the pension scheme of the freedom fighters allowing the extension of the benefits to the divorced daughters of the freedom fighters. Earlier, the scheme included mother, father, widow/widower who has not remarried and unmarried daughters.
Khajani Devi (divorced daughter of the freedom fighter) filed a writ petition before single bench which held that the petitioner cannot be given the benefits of the said scheme as she does not come in the list of the dependents. In appeal, a division bench held that there is not rationality in excluding a daughter who is divorced but including the one who is unmarried. The Hon'ble court observed that the underlying object in the clause of the scheme listing eligible dependents is that only one be granted the pension. Therefore, the authorities have to contrue the admissibility of benefit from the angle. It is not the case that daughters are excluded altogether. An unmarried daughter finds a mention in the list of eligible dependents. It would thus, be a travesty to exclude a divorced daughter.
There would be no rationality to the reason that unmarried daughter can be included in the list of eligible dependents and a divorced daughter would stand excluded, particularly when she is sold eligible dependents and thus qualify for the benefit, which is concededly made admissible only to one dependent. We are of the opinion that a beneficial scheme like the one in hand should not be fettered or constructed by a riogouros interpretation which tends to deprive the claimants of the benefit to result in virtual frustration or negation of the laudable motive of the scheme itself.
Finally the bench of Hon'ble Supreme Court of India has held that we need to be progressive and it is important to extend the benefits of the said scheme to divorced daughters as there is no correct justification as to why only a unmarried daughter needs to be given the pension and not the ones who have divorced.
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