Know The Law | Why Supreme Court Did Not Follow 'Tarsem Singh' Precedent On Limiting Pension Arrear Claims?

The Supreme Court has recently ruled that a widow claiming family pension cannot be denied arrears merely because she approached the courts belatedly, where the delay was on account of her poverty, illiteracy, and the employer's own illegality. This ruling departs from the Supreme Court's earlier ruling in Union of India v Tarsem Singh (2008) 8 SCC 648 wherein the restricted arrears of pension to three years prior to filing of the writ petition.

A bench of Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice Shree Chandrashekhar was dealing with an appeal filed by the widow of a Railway employee who had died in harness, in 2000. The appellant and her husband were residing separately due to a dispute and, she was unaware of her husband's service particulars at the time of his death. Her husband was subsequently dismissed from service in 2001, after his death. When the appellant appealed against the dismissal, her plea was rejected in 2012 on grounds of delay and discrepancy in the recorded dates of death. Later a civil suit was filed which declared 12.11.2000 as the correct date of her husband's death. Thereafter, she approached the CAT. However, the Tribunal dismissed her plea as time-barred. Subsequently, she moved the Bombay High Court, which granted her family pension but only from 2014 onwards.

Aggrieved by the High Court's order, the appellant approached the Supreme Court.

Before the Supreme Court, the appellant contended that family pension was due upon her immediately on her husband's death, and the same could not be curtailed to a later date. She relied on SK Mastan Bee v General Manager, South Central Railway (2003) 1 SCC 184, wherein the Court had restored arrears from the date of the husband's death itself. In SK Mastan Bee, the Court had observed that the burden lay on the employer to compute and offer the pension, not on an illiterate widow to claim it.

“On the death of the husband of the appellant, it was obligatory for her husband's employer viz. the Railways, in this case to have computed the family pension payable to the appellant and offered the same to her without her having to make a claim or without driving her to a litigation. The very denial of her right to family pension as held by the learned Single Judge as well as the Division Bench is an erroneous decision on the part of the Railways and in fact amounting to a violation of the guarantee assured to the appellant under Article 21 of the Constitution,” it was ruled in SK Mastan Bee.

On the contrary, the Union government relied on Union of India v Tarsem Singh, to argue that the High Court was right in restricting arrears in line with the principle that consequential relief for recurring wrongs is normally confined to three years prior to the filing of the writ.

Both Tarsem Singh and SK Mastan Bee were rendered by benches of equal strength. The Supreme Court noted that while laying the three-year rule on arrears, the bench in Tarsem Singh had not taken note of the earlier ruling in SK Mastan Bee, even though the latter dealt with the very same category of claim of family pension of a widow.

“The principle laid down in SK Mastan Bee is also by a two-Judge Bench like that in the matter of Tarsem Singh. However, SK Mastan Bee is directly related to the case of family pension claim by a widow like in the present case. This Court, while taking a view in Tarsem Singh that the consequential relief of recovery of arrears should be restricted by the High Courts normally to a period of three years prior to the date of the filing of the writ petition, has not taken into consideration the earlier view of this Court in SK Mastan Bee. In a situation like this, this Court is required to ponder as to what course is open when there is conflict in the views taken in two judgments of this Court rendered by the Benches of equal strength,” the bench observed.

On this point, the doctrine of precedent and per incuriam became relevant. The Court reiterated the settled position in Union of India v SK Kapoor, that when a subsequent coordinate bench overlooks an earlier coordinate bench's ruling on the same point, the earlier decision continues to bind, and the later one is rendered per incuriam. The bench also relied upon Dr Shah Faesal v Union of India and Parveen Kumar @ Parveen Chauhan v State of Haryana, to reiterate settled principles governing conflicting decisions. Both the decisions deal with the doctrine of stare decisis, ratio decidendi, and per incuriam, and had crystallised the tests for when a judgment becomes per incuriam, because its ratio cannot be reconciled with an earlier decision of a bench of equal or higher strength on the same point, and judicial discipline required that any disagreement ought to have been referred to a larger bench rather than departed from silently.

Hence, the Court observed that a coordinate bench of equal strength cannot take a contrary view without referring the matter to a larger bench, and that where a subsequent decision fails to consider an earlier binding decision on the same point, the subsequent decision would be per incuriam and devoid of precedential value. Applying this, the Court held that since SK Mastan Bee was the earlier decision on the point of restricting arrears in family pension cases, and Tarsem Singh had failed to consider it, the only choice open to the Court was to follow SK Mastan Bee, not Tarsem Singh.

Holding that the pension is a valuable right and property, and not a bounty, the Court found that restricting the benefit to 2014 would inflict injustice upon a poor widow who was not at fault for the delay, and her claim having been repeatedly stalled over a discrepancy in the date of death that she was constrained to resolve through a civil litigation.

“Not only that her husband was dismissed after his death which was impermissible as per the Railway Board's own circular, the appellant's subsequent representation claiming family pension was rejected on the ground of incongruity as to the date of death of her late husband. The appellant had to file a civil suit to obtain a declaration as to the exact date of death of her husband, for which otherwise, a death certificate, a statutory document, had already been issued in her favour. Thus, the appellant was not at fault in laying the delayed challenge to the Railways' refusal to grant family pension to her,” the bench held.

In the light of above, the Supreme Court allowed the appeal and directed that the appellant shall be entitled to family pension from the date of death of her husband (12.11.2000), with 6% interest per annum within three months of the order.

Case: Maya Banerjee v Union of India & Ors

Citation : 2026 LiveLaw (SC) 912