NEW DELHI: The married daughter of a central government employee, who is no more, will get family pension even during the pendency of a divorce case, the Centre has said.
Existing rules allow divorced daughters to get family pension only if a decree of divorce had been issued by the competent court during the life time of at least one of the parents.
The Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions has recently changed rules to help such women facing divorce cases in court.
The decision comes as the government was receiving grievances from various quarters that the divorce proceedings take years before attaining finality.
There are many cases in which the divorce proceedings of the daughter of a government employee/pensioner had been instituted in the competent court during the life time of one or both of the parents but none of them was alive by the time the decree of divorce was granted by the competent authority, the ministry said.
"The matter has been examined in this department in consultation with Department of Expenditure and it has been decided to grant family pension to a divorced daughter in such cases where the divorce proceedings had been filed in a competent court during the life-time of the employee/pensioner or his/her spouse but divorce took place after their death," the ministry said.
However, the grant of family pension will be subjected to fulfilment of other eligibility criteria as well, it added.
Family pension is given to a spouse of a dead government servant or to dependent children.