Home |  Elder Rights |  Health |  Pension Watch |  Rural Aging |  Armed Conflict |  Aging Watch at the UN  

  SEARCH SUBSCRIBE  
 

Mission  |  Contact Us  |  Internships  |    

        

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Family Pension To Challenged Children Of Defense Personnel 

Express News Service, June 20, 2004

 

Chandigarh: A handicapped child - mentally or physically challenged - should be treated as a special category. And when such a child loses his parents, taking care of him becomes an intricate issue. 

Seized of this problem, the government has been authorized to pay family pension to these special children once the parents who have been getting the pension are no longer alive. 

The Government of India has directed that if a physically or mentally challenged son or daughter of a defense person is unable to earn a living even after attaining adulthood, the family pension shall be payable to him/her for life, subject to certain conditions. 

To claim this benefit, a medical certificate from a medical officer not below the rank of a civil surgeon setting out the exact mental or physical disability of the child should be produced to the pension sanctioning authority. 

Such a family pension shall be paid through a guardian. The government has clarified that for drawing the family pension on behalf of a challenged minor/major, the guardian should produce a guardianship certificate from a court of law. 

However, the instructions do not clarify some important issues. Firstly, the time of sending the representation to the Pension Sanctioning Authority for obtaining the pension order for the challenged child is not clear. The name of the child should be entered in the Pension Payment Order before the death of the parents so that he gets the pension automatically. In this, the Record Office of the defense person and Pension Sanctioning Authority are supposed to help and guide the defense person. And if the challenged child is born after retirement, the defense person should get the child's name entered by the District Sainik Welfare Officer and the Record Office in the Pension Payment Order. 

Secondly, the appointment of a guardian for such a child is again a complicated issue. For this, a guardianship certificate is required from a Court of Law, which is a difficult proposition. The laws which deal with this issue are the Guardians and Wards Act, 1890 and the Mental Health Act, 1987. The Guardians and Wards Act applies to 'minor' children only. It does not deal with the appointment of a guardian for a 'major' person. According to the law, even if a child is 'minor' and a guardian is appointed, the guardianship will come to an end once the child becomes 'major'. 

The Mental Health Act deals with a 'mentally ill person.' According to definition, a mentally retarded person is excluded from this definition. Hence, it will not be possible to obtain a guardianship certificate from a court of law in the case of a major child who is 'mentally retarded.' 

Thus, it will not be possible for a 'mentally retarded' person or a 'physically handicapped person' who is incapable to look after himself to get the family pension after the death of his parents. Further, during the lifetime of parents, they are the natural guardians and there is no necessity to appoint any other person as a guardian. 

We have approached the Government of India through the Army Headquarters to issue suitable instructions so that it becomes practical for a challenged person to get the benefit of pension after his/her parents are not alive. The procedure should be simplified so that the benefit of pension to the challenged person is readily available.


Copyright © Global Action on Aging
Terms of Use  |  Privacy Policy  |  Contact Us