Pension denied to 102-year-old freedom fighter: Karnataka HC imposes fine of Rs 1 lakh

The high court has imposed Rs one lakh cost on the officers of both central and state government for withholding freedom fighter’s pension to a centenarian on the ground of non-furnishing of Life Certificate and for forcing him to litigate over the matter thrice.

The petitioner H Nagabhushana Rao, 102, a resident of Malleshwaram in Bengaluru, was granted a Swatantra Sainik Samman Gaurava Dhana (honorary pension) by both the Central and the State Governments. Citing that he had not submitted his Life Certificate for the year 2017-2018, the pension was stopped in November 2017. Even though his pension was restored subsequent to submission of the Life Certificate, the arrears of pension amounting to Rs 3.71 lakh was not cleared.

The petitioner first filed a petition in 2020 and the authorities were directed to take appropriate action within two weeks.

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When nothing came about, the petitioner moved a contempt petition. He again moved the court in 2021 for release of the amount. Pursuant to the order of the court, a communication was issued directing that the petitioner is not entitled to the arrears on the ground that he had not submitted the Life Certificate.

“The officers have displayed apathy to the cause of the petitioner in the peculiar circumstances of the case by not taking the Life Certificate as by then the petitioner was 97 years old and was recipient of pension for a long time under the scheme. Above all, all these submissions have been made and negatived by the coordinate bench. Therefore, the petitioner would be entitled to all the arrears along with interest, as the Bank has failed to collect Life Certificate from the hands of the petitioner in terms of the guidelines. The Bank ought to have visited the petitioner and collected the Life Certificate and regulated pension,” Justice M Nagaprasanna said.

The court has directed the authorities to pay Rs 3.71 lakh pension arrears with 6 per cent interest from December 24, 2018 till date, within a period of two weeks’ time.

“In cases where there are genuine problems of pensioners who are unable to visit up to the Bank, it is the duty of the Bank officers to visit those persons and take Life Certificate and update them on the system. The pensioners could be septuagenarians, octogenarians, nonagenarians or centenarians like the petitioner. Therefore, this order cannot be construed to be sweeping direction in all cases where the Life Certificate has to be secured by the Bank officers, but in genuine cases, the Bank officers ought to perform their duty,” the court said.