THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE A.V. SESHA SAI WRIT PETITION No.24965 0f 2006 Between:
1. Palleboyana Kanakamma and others PETITIONERS AND
1. Union of India, rep. by its Deputy Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, Freedom Fighters Division, Loknayak Bhavan, Khan Market, New Delhi, and another.
RESPONDENTS ORDER:
This writ petition is filed under Article 226 of the constitution of India, challenging the action of the 1st respondent-Union of India in not granting pension to the petitioners from the date of receipt of their applications as being arbitrary, illegal and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India and for a consequential direction to the respondent to grant pension to the petitioners with effect from the date of receipt of the applications under Swatantra Sainik Samman Pension Scheme, 1980.
2. Heard Sri Subba Rao Korrapati, learned counsel for the petitioners, Sri A. Radha Krishna, learned Additional Standing Counsel for 1st respondent-Union of India, and learned Government Pleader for Revenue for respondent No.2, apart from perusing the material available on record.
3. According to the petitioners, they submitted applications to the respondents in the year 1997 for grant of freedom fighters pension under Swatantra Sainik Samman Pension Scheme, 1980. When their applications were not considered earlier, they filed a batch of writ petitions before this Court and this Court by way of an order dated 11.02.1998 directed the 1st respondent-Union of India to consider the case of the petitioners. The 1st respondent vide proceedings dated 29.10.2003, 17.03.2003, 01.05.2003 and 22.07.2004 granted freedom fighters pension to the petitioners 1 to 4 respectively. The grievance of the petitioners, precisely, in the present writ petition is instead of granting the said pension prospectively, the 1st respondent ought to have granted the pension with retrospective effect, i.e., from the date of applications.
4. Responding to Rule Nisi issued by this court, counter affidavit has been filed on behalf of the 1st respondent-Union of India, resisting the relief sought for in the writ petition.
5. Admittedly, the 1st respondent granted family pension in favour of the petitioners basing on the secondary evidence made available by the petitioners. This issue is no longer res integra. The Hon’ble Apex Court and this Court in a number of judgments held that if the claim is based on secondary evidence, the freedom fighters pension can be granted only prospectively. In fact, following the judgments rendered by the Hon’ble Apex Court and this Court, this Court in identical set of circumstances in W.P.No.4851 of 2005 by way of an order dated 13.11.2013 negatived the relief with retrospective effect.
6. For the afore said reasons and having regard to the order of this court referred to above in W.P.No.4851 of 2005 and for the reasons recorded therein, this writ petition is dismissed. No order as to costs. As a sequel, the miscellaneous petitions, if any, stand closed.
JUSTICE A.V. SESHA SAI.
4th August, 2014 Js.