Bachan Kaur’s husband joined UHBVNL as a work-charge employee in 1969 and was regularized in 1979. On October 6, 1980, while on duty at Bilaspur, he suffered severe burns from an electric shock (Archive)The Punjab and Haryana High Court has directed the Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam Ltd (UHBVNL) to restore invalid and family pension benefits to the widow of a former assistant lineman who suffered 90% disability in an electric shock accident in 1980.Justice Harpreet Singh Brar quashed the December 31, 2018 order withdrawing benefits to the woman from January 2019, terming the department’s approach “hypertechnical and insensitive.”Bachan Kaur’s husband joined UHBVNL as a work-charge employee in 1969 and was regularized in 1979. On October 6, 1980, while on duty at Bilaspur, he suffered severe burns from an electric shock, leading to the amputation of his right arm and index finger of his left hand. His disability was assessed at 90%. He resumed duties briefly but was terminated on January 4, 1983, without pension. He died in January 1988.Bachan Kaur was granted pension in September 2014 by the then superintending engineer after departmental approval under Rule 5.12 of the Civil Services Rules (CSR). She received arrears and regular pension until the successor officer withdrew it in 2018, prompting the writ petition.Justice Brar noted that the department failed to produce service records, claiming they were destroyed in a 1997 flood. “It is the respondent-department that ought to have the service record of the deceased,” he said, adding that shifting the burden to the widow was “callous and unjustifiable.”Citing Rule 2.5 and 5.12 of the CSR, the court held that termination was due to disability, not inefficiency, and that pension was admissible when re-employment was not possible. It also invoked Section 47 of the Persons with Disabilities Act, 1995, which bars termination of employees acquiring disability during service. Equating disability with inefficiency, the judge said, was “expressly illegal and terribly apathetic.”Justice Brar relied on Supreme Court precedents, including Kunal Singh vs. Union of India (2003), which held that employees acquiring disability must be protected, and Bhagwan Dass vs. PSEB (2008), which stated that denying rights to the disabled is neither fair nor lawful. He also referred to State of Kerala vs. Leesamma Joseph (2021), which rejected discrimination based on how disability occurred.Story continues below this adThe court further held that the successor officer had no authority to review the 2014 order passed by a competent authority, citing R.T. Rangachari vs. Secretary of State (1937) and a 2018 Punjab and Haryana High Court ruling.Exercising writ jurisdiction under Whirlpool Corporation vs. Registrar of Trade Marks (1998), Justice Brar allowed the petition, restored pension benefits, and directed UHBVNL to release arrears from January 1, 2019, with 7.5% annual interest, following the precedent in A.J. Randhawa vs. State of Punjab (1998). Compliance was ordered within eight weeks.Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram© The Indian Express Pvt LtdTags:Punjab and Haryana High CourtUHBVNL