The Punjab and Haryana High Court has dismissed an appeal by the Government of India challenging an order of the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) dated August 27, 2024, vide which higher Liberalised Family Pension was allowed from January 1, 1996, to Shammi Malhotra, widow of an Air Force transport pilot who died in a crash over the snowbound Himalayas 58 years ago.The Centre was aggrieved that the arrears were not restricted to three years preceding the date of institution of the original application.Counsel for the Centre argued that the benefit of arrears should be restricted and granted from 2016, and not from 1996. This, the counsel submitted, was also clear from a letter dated September 15, 2014, issued by the Deputy Secretary (Pension), Government of India, and another letter issued by the Director, Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare.An AN-12 of the Indian Air Force, on a flight from Chandigarh to Leh carrying 102 frontline troops deployed at the Line of Actual Control with China, lost contact over the Rohtang Pass and crashed at Dhaka Glacier in Himachal Pradesh in 1968. The first remains of a human body were accidentally discovered by a trekking team of the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in 2003 at a height of 18,000 feet.Shammi Malhotra, the widow of one of the pilots of the aircraft, Squadron Leader PN Malhotra, who was declared “presumed dead”, was granted ‘Special Family Pension’ as per the orders then in force.Later, in 2001, deaths in operational areas were included in the entitlement to a higher pension called the “Liberalised Family Pension” (LFP) with effect from January 1996. It was subsequently clarified by the Government that deaths in air missions undertaken in support of troops and security forces deployed in forward areas would also be eligible for LFP with effect from 1996.Eligible under the new orders, Shammi Malhotra applied for LFP, but her claim was rejected on the ground that the death had occurred in 1968 and that the provisions of LFP were applicable only from the cut-off date of 1996.The Chandigarh Bench of the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) ruled that the wife of the late pilot would be entitled to LFP from January 1, 1996.After hearing the arguments, Justice Harsimran Singh Sethi and Justice Amrinder Singh Grewal said that, being a model employer, the Union is obligated to extend the benefit of Liberalised Family Pension to the family members of deceased Armed Forces personnel who died or were deemed to have died while performing official duties, as per the applicable rules and entitlements.“The benefit of such pensionary provisions is intended to provide financial security and support to the dependents of deceased personnel who made the supreme sacrifice in the course of service.”“Merely because the employee has not claimed the benefit admissible to him/her immediately does not deprive him/her of the same. When it is claimed, the benefit so admissible to an employee has to be given from the date of his/her entitlement so that such employee does not suffer due to inaction on the part of the Union in not granting him/her the benefit admissible earlier.”“Keeping in view the facts and circumstances of the present case, no ground is made out for any interference by this court. In the facts and circumstances of the present case, the writ petition is accordingly dismissed.”