Thursday, July 4, 2019

HC pulls up officials for stopping pension of elderly woman

K.Kaushik@timesgroup.com

Madurai:04.07.2019

Pulling up the revenue department officials for their recklessness, the Madurai bench of the Madras high court has directed the authorities to disperse pending arrears and compensation to an elderly woman for whom the old age pension (OAP) was stopped based on false information that she was dead though she was alive.

On Wednesday, justice R Suresh Kumar gave the direction on the petition filed by K Sundarammal, a resident of T Vallakulam village at Kamuthi taluk in Ramanathapuram district. She had sought the continuation of OAP after it was stopped based on false information.

The judge observed that the tahsildar of Kamuthi in his counter had stated that the reason for the erroneous deletion of the petitioner’s name was made by an outsourced computer operator.

The judge observed, “This is a classic case where the government authorities have recklessly acted in providing welfare schemes to the needy people as per the policy of the state government. Expressing its anguish, the court wants to give remedial action for the loss sustained by the petitioner for her sufferings.”

Hence, the judge directed the officials to calculate and disperse the pending arrears of OAP to the petitioner with an interest rate of 6% and also distribute a compensation of ₹50,000 to the petitioner within two weeks.

The judge also directed the authorities to submit a compliance report in this regard on July 24. In her petition, Sundarammal stated that she is a destitute woman and does not have any legal heir to take care of her. She further stated that as she does not have any permanent job she is unable to fulfil her daily needs. She said that after she submitted a representation, the officials started distributing OAP from November 24, 2006. However, it was stopped from July 21, 2015.

No comments:

Post a Comment

NEWS TODAY 14,11,2024