The claim was dismissed due to a substantial 30-year delay in filing it and a lack of adequate documentation to prove her marital status and her husband's service record.

An appeal submitted by a 96-year-old widow seeking a family pension for her deceased husband, a retired judicial officer, was recently denied by the Patna High Court.Registrar General & Ors v. Rudra Maya Sinha.

The claim was dismissed due to a substantial 30-year delay in filing it and a lack of adequate documentation to prove her marital status and her husband's service record.

Chief Justice K Vinod Chandran and Justice Rajiv Roy's bench further stated,

"Even the petitioner claims that her spouse had two children from a previous marriage to a different woman.

The first wife is reported to have passed away, but neither the death certificate nor the date of death are given. Furthermore, there is no proof of the petitioner's marriage to the dead employee."

The petitioner claimed to be the late Ram Kishore Prasad Sinha's widow. Sinha was a judicial magistrate for thirteen years.

The petitioner claims that her husband received a five-year extension upon his retirement, and he finally retired in May 1963.

According to the Court's Inferences, Sinha died on June 20, 1989, while still eligible for pension benefits.

It was clear that the petitioner's dependence on an Aadhaar card and passport that were both obtained much later than her husband's passing was unnecessary.

The Court further stated that these records did not prove the petitioner's husband worked for the government.

According to the Bihar Pension Rules, 1950, the Family Pension Scheme for State Government Employees, 1964, established a family pension provision that took effect on April 1st, 1964, prior to the pensioner's death. The Court observed that the claim was egregiously delayed in coming forward after more than 30 years.



As so, the Court dismissed the plea.