Meera Maharishi v. Vijaya Bank

1. By this writ petition, the petitioner who is the widow of late Sh. Laxmi Narain; an employee of the respondent-bank; seeks that respondent should give ex-gratia payment to the petitioner in accordance with its scheme. Respondent-bank previously had a scheme of compassionate appointment in case of death of an employee in harness, and which was substituted by the extant scheme of grant of ex-gratia payment. Late Sh. Laxmi Narain was working as a telephone operator with the respondentbank. 2013:DHC:4547

2. The respondent-bank has filed its counter-affidavit. Alongwith the counter-affidavit the scheme in question, application which was filed by the petitioner for grant of ex-gratia payment and a certificate of the SHO (P.S.Najafgarh) have been filed.

3. The issue is that whether petitioner satisfies the requirement of the scheme for grant of ex-gratia payment. Firstly, as per the scheme in question, a person can get ex-gratia payment if the total sources of monthly income of the dependants of the deceased are less than 60% of the last drawn gross salary. To determine this last drawn gross salary, all the terminal benefits which are received by the dependants of the deceased, have to be added and which include provident fund, gratuity, leave encashment and other amounts received. When we see the application filed by the petitioner, all that is stated with respect to this relevant paragraph 8 is that it is stated that “Already Settled by Bank”. Therefore, the application is silent as to the total amounts which are available to the petitioner for determining whether such amounts as corpus can be yielded less than 60% of the gross salary. I may note that counsel for the respondent-bank says that petitioner has other deposits in banks, and a photocopy of one such deposit was endeavoured to be shown to the Court at the time of the arguments. The petitioner therefore cannot be said to have submitted a complete application and thus she was not entitled to succeed in her claim. Petitioner it appears wanted to deliberately conceal facts. Since the ex-gratia payment is in addition to the service benefits which are already paid, the respondent-bank is entitled to ensure strict compliance of the requirements of the scheme.

4. As per the scheme in question, benefit of ex-gratia payment cannot be granted in case the employee has committed suicide. A reference to the application filed by the petitioner shows that it is written that the employee Laxmi Narain died because of heart failure. Besides the fact that no certificate was attached to show heart failure, the respondent-bank has filed a certificate of Station House Officer (SHO) of P.S.Najafgarh which shows that Late Laxmi Narain had consumed some poisonous substance. This certificate reads as under:- “It is certified that Laxmi Narain S/o Durga Narain R/o Saraswati Vihar, Surabh Pur Road, Najafgarh, New Delhi, had died on 13/11/1997 as he had consumed some poisonous substance. In this regard inquest proceeding u/s 174 Cr. P.C. were conducted by SI Shailender Singh and a D.D.entry was also lodged vide No. 93B dated 14/11/97 P.S.Najafgarh to this effect. No criminal case was registered in this regard.”

5. A reading of the aforesaid certificate shows that the deceased Laxmi Narain who was an employee of the respondent-bank had committed suicide by consuming some poisonous substance and thus petitioner was not entitled to the ex-gratia payment.

6. Counsel for the petitioner sought to argue that since this certificate shows that no criminal case was registered, it should be concluded that Late Laxmi Narain did not commit suicide and possibly may have wrongly consumed poisonous substance. I cannot agree. It is quite clear that petitioner is concealing facts. This certificate admittedly was never filed with the respondent-bank and respondent-bank because of its pro-active approach received this certificate from the SHO, P.S. Najafgarh. Argument urged by the counsel for the petitioner that late Laxmi Narain should not be held to have committed suicide because no criminal case was registered is the argument in futility because unless and until there is abetment to suicide there was no need of filing a criminal case against any person.

7. In my opinion, petitioner fails to comply with the requirements of the scheme. Petitioner has in fact deliberately concealed facts not only in seeking ex-gratia payment but also at the time of approaching this Court, and thus the ex-gratia payment is not due and payable to the petitioner.

8. I am not imposing the costs in spite of gross concealment of facts by the petitioner because petitioner is a widow.

9. In view of the above, the writ petition is dismissed, leaving the parties to bear their own costs.

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013 VALMIKI J. MEHTA, J. ib