NEW DELHI: The Centre on Thursday told the Supreme Court that under the Indian Air Force (IAF) rules, a stepmother couldn’t be considered for a family pension, as she is distinct from the natural mother in both legal and relational terms.
The Centre made these submissions to the apex court while responding to a plea filed by a stepmother, Jayashree Y. Jogi, who challenged an Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) order denying her special family pension.
Jogi’s plea, filed in the top court, said her deceased son was an active airman and was dining at the Air Force mess when he died under mysterious circumstances on April 28, 2008. The air force claimed he died by suicide. Jogi raised her stepson after his biological mother died and was thereby seeking a family pension from IAF.
While citing various SC rulings on maintenance and welfare benefits concerning the interpretation of the term “mother”, Centre, in its submissions, said that a stepmother cannot be considered a natural or biological mother and therefore is not entitled to pension benefits.
“It is a settled principle of law that, although a pension is not a bounty and is claimable as a matter of right, such a right is neither absolute nor unconditional. A person seeking pensionary benefits must establish a clear entitlement under the applicable statutory provisions or regulations,” the Centre told a three-judge bench of Justices Surya Kant, Ujjal Bhuyan and N Kotiswar Singh.
The court had earlier asked the Centre’s counsel to consider adopting a flexible approach to include step-mother’s claim for pension or any beneficial claim.