Twenty-five years after a CRPF officer was shot dead by a constable while on duty in Assam, the Jharkhand High Court finally ruled in favour of his widow, who had been fighting for years to get the Liberalised Pensionary Award (LPA) – a special set of pension benefits for personnel killed or disabled due to specific circumstances – and pulled up the Union and the Central Reserve Police Force for denying her rights.
A division bench of Chief Justice Tarlok Singh Chauhan and Justice Rajesh Shankar, in its judgment delivered on October 14, dismissed the appeal filed by the Union of India and the CRPF against the order of the single judge, which had directed that she be paid pension under the LPA scheme.
The court imposed a cost of Rs 2 lakh on the authorities for wasting public money and pursuing what it called “an abuse of process of law”.
Her husband, Captain Ravindra Nath Mishra, served in the Indian Army and later in the Geological Survey of India before joining the CRPF on March 31, 1993, as Deputy Superintendent of Police (Company Commander). He was shot dead in 1995 by his own constable.
After his death, the CRPF set his wife Bhindheshwari Mishra’s pension at Rs 470 a month, viewing the case as personal enmity and not death in the line of duty. Despite multiple attempts, her pleas to have her pension under the LPA revised were rejected.
Advocate Samavesh Bhanj Deo, her counsel, said the court directed that she should get her pension under the prevailing law, but officials paid her under the Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF), which was far lower than she was entitled to.
“So, Bhindheshwari approached the Patna High Court in 1999, and later the Jharkhand High Court in 2003. In 2008, the court ordered her to be paid under the LPA with other interests. The CRPF challenged the order multiple times, but appeals were dismissed, and the court noted that repeated litigation was harassment to a widow,” he said.
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The court described the authorities as “untrustworthy” and “belligerent litigants”, and held that the constable who killed the officer could be treated as an “antisocial element,” making the case eligible under LPA.
Chief Justice Chauhan emphasised that the country is governed by the rule of law, and highlighted the words of 17th-century English churchman and historian Thomas Fuller: “Be ye ever so high, still the law is above you”.
“The widow and her sons have really been relentless in this battle. Legally, she had every right to the LPA, and it’s a relief to see that she’s finally received it,” her counsel said.
