The Madras High Court has directed the Union Home Ministry to sanction pension for the widow of a freedom fighter and slammed it for a delay of over three decades in considering the woman’s application.
Justice R Suresh Kumar said the attitude on the part of officials responsible for keeping the application pending for more than three decades is to be deprecated. Had the application of the petitioner decided in 1973 and disposed of either way, the petitioner would have been in a position either to get the fruits of the freedom fighter family pension or would have protested over the issue in the matter known to law, the judge said. The matter relates to L Kathayee Ammal, the widow of freedom fighter Lakshmana Thevar, who has been made to wait for 30 years for the pension.
Ammal’s application has been kept pending by the central government and the court wants to register its displeasure against all those responsible, the judge said in his order. The petitioner’s husband was an ex- Indian National Army personnel who joined the INA in Malaysia and was captured by the British. After WWII, the petitioner’s husband applied to the Tamil Nadu and Central Governments seeking freedom fighters’ pension, but before the application was considered, he died in 1969.
