Withholding freedom fighter’s pension for so long not justified: Bombay HC – Times of India

MUMBAI: Withholding of freedom fighter’s pension, that too for such a long period–since his death in 1965—is not justified, said Bombay high court while hearing a petition filed by a 90-year-old widow of Laxman Chavan who took part in the 1942 Quit India Movement.
The HC asked the state government pleader Purnima Kantharia to obtain instructions from the concerned department and apprise it by September 30.
Shalini Chavan, through her counsel J M Pathade, said her late husband had even undergone imprisonment in Byculla Jail from April 17, 1944 to October 11, 1944, for six month for participating in the Quit India Movement. She approached the HC for its intervention.
The HC in its order on Friday noted, “though the State of Maharashtra has framed a pension scheme for freedom fighters called Swatantrata Sainik Sanman Pension Scheme, 1980, benefit of the said scheme has not been extended to the petitioner.’’
Her lawyers Pathade and Shrikant Raokar said she has not benefited under the scheme because “old records in the Byculla District Prison containing details of late Laxman Ramchandra Chavan’s imprisonment may have been destroyed.’’
The HC bench of justice Ujjal Bhuyan and justice Madhav Jamdar said, “Be that as it may, from the available materials on record, there does not appear to be any dispute as to the status of late Laxman Ramchandra Chavan as a freedom fighter’’ and that of the petitioner being his widow.
The HC will hear the matter next on September 30.