The Delhi High Court has directed the Centre to pay Extraordinary Family Pension to the wife of a CRPF Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) who died in a road accident while returning to duty from his leave.
A Bench of Justice S. Muralidhar and Justice I.S. Mehta rejected as “unjustified” the stand taken by the Department of Pension & Pensioners’ Welfare that Rakesh Kumar had met with the accident while he was on ‘casual leave’ and not on ‘actual/active duty’.
The High Court’s direction came on a petition filed by his wife.
Kumar, who was attached with the Jammu & Kashmir Zone CRPF, was granted a casual leave for a day on February 16, 2015, with permission to avail February 15, 2015 (Sunday) and February 17, 2015, being a government holiday.
He reached his home in Haryana’s Narnaul on February 15, 2015. The next day, he was on his way to join duty when his younger brother called and insisted that he should attend a marriage function in Khatoli Ahir village.
Since there was no bus service from Narnaul to Khatoli Ahir, Kumar drove to the venue. The petition stated that the village was on Kumar’s route — from Narnaul to Jammu via Delhi — to join duty. The plea further said that most people going to Jammu from Narnaul preferred to go via Delhi as there is no train service from Rewari, closest railway station to Narnaul, to Jammu.
Died on spot
The accident happened when a truck hit Kumar’s motorcycle from behind at around 4.30 p.m. on February 16. He died on the spot. The truck driver fled the accident site leaving the vehicle behind.
A Court of Inquiry (COI) later came to the conclusion that Kumar should be treated as being on duty as the accident occurred when he was returning for duty from his leave station at public expense.
Accordingly, the COI recommended that the petitioner’s wife should be granted Extraordinary Family Pension in addition to the other pensionary/financial benefits applicable to government servants. But the department rejected the proposal.
“…Since the husband of the petitioner was proceeding from his hometown to Jammu to join duty and met with an accident in that journey, the accident should be held to be while he was ‘on duty’,” the High Court remarked.
It directed the Centre to grant his wife Extraordinary Family Pension and ex-gratia lump sum compensation within a period of 12 weeks.