Velu Vasudevan vs The Secretary to Government of India

A. Muhamed Mustaque, J.—The original petition is filed for disbursement of Swatantra Sainik Samman Pension under the Central Government Scheme. During the pendency of this original petition, the petitioner died and his wife was impleaded as additional petitioner. The case of the petitioner is that the petitioner has taken part in freedom struggle of the country and also a recipient of state freedom fighter''s pension. The petitioner points out various instances in which he had taken part in freedom struggle of the country in the memorandum of writ petition. The Petitioner claims that he is entitled for the pension under the Central Government Scheme. The petitioner made Ext.P4 application. The application of the petitioner has been rejected as per Ext.P7, stating various grounds. The petitioner in this writ petition states that he has valid answer to the objections on which the application for pension has been turned down. He reiterates those answers in the reply affidavit filed before this Court. The petitioner further states that in the light of explanation given by him, the application need to be reconsidered.

Heard the learned counsel for the petitioner and the learned counsel for the Central Government.

The application for pension by Freedom Fighters has to be treated sympathetically and requires a lenient approach. It appears that before rejection of the pension as per Ext.P7, the petitioner was not given an opportunity to explain on the objections on which, the application has been rejected. This court finds that if authority had chosen to obtain explanation from the petitioner, the decision rendered in Ext.P7 would have been based on such explanations and it seems failure of such exercise had unnecessarily dragged the petitioner to this court.

In such circumstance, I set aside Ext.P7 issued by the first respondent and direct first respondent to reconsider the application in the light of explanation to be furnished by the petitioner. Such exercise shall be done within a period of four months from the date of receipt of a certified copy of this judgment. Needless to say that the petitioner shall furnish necessary explanation to the objection found against him in Ext.P7 before the second respondent, who in turn shall forward the same through the State Government to the first respondent within a period of two months.

With the above direction, the original petition is disposed of.