Karnataka High Court Rules Family Pension Inaccessible for Second Wife During Continuance of First Marriage

The Karnataka High Court said no to the appeal from the second wife of a deceased State employee who wanted family pension after her husband passed away.

In dismissing her appeal upon noting that the deceased employee’s first marriage was still subsisting when he married her, a division bench of Chief Justice Prasanna B Varale and Justice Krishna S Dixit said, “Family Pension is payable to the “wife”, and not to those whose marriage is ‘no marriage’ in the eye of law, the limited status of legitimacy of children begotten therefrom, by virtue of Sec.16 1955 Act, notwithstanding.”

The appellant sought judicial intervention subsequent to the dismissal of her plea by a singular judicial authority. Her petition aimed to nullify a communication issued by the Department of Rural Development and Panchayat Raj, which had disapproved her entreaty for the sanctioning of Family Pension and associated arrears. The basis for rejection rested on the fact that she contracted marriage with the deceased employee, Nanjundaiah, during the subsistence of his prior matrimonial alliance.

The appellant contended that, notwithstanding her status as the second spouse, she possessed legal entitlement to the Family Pension. Consequently, she posited that the impugned order was legally infirm in this regard.

Upon hearing the arguments, the bench refused to interfere with the order of the single bench since the appellant was not the legally wedded wife for the purpose of grant of Family Pension. It held:

“It hardly needs to be stated that amongst Hindus monogamy is not only ideal but a legal prescription and therefore marriage contracted when the first wife is alive, cannot be taken cognizance of by law, subject to all just exceptions into which the argued case of the appellant does not fit. Recognizing such relations arising from second marriage during the subsistence of first one is detrimental to public interest inasmuch as that would facilitate directly or indirectly the employees contracting the second marriage, which is legally impermissible.”

The bench underscored the statutory prohibition of bigamy as delineated in section 17 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. It elucidated that Rule 294 of the Karnataka Civil Services Rules, governing the posthumous or post-retirement disbursement of Family Pension to the family of a deceased government servant, designates ‘family’ to encompass specified relatives, with the paramount inclusion being the legal wife.

Consequently, the court opined that the disbursement of Family Pension is legally confined to the duly wedded first wife of the deceased employee, precluding recognition for unions devoid of legal validity.

In light of these legal considerations, the appeal was adjudged devoid of merit and accordingly dismissed.