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Plaintiffs, who are successful in the trial Court, but have been non-suited by the lower appellate Court, have filed the instant second appeal.

Nathu Ram Bawlia was Railway employee under the defendants/respondents. He retired on 31.05.2000 and died on 03.07.2000. Plaintiffs being his widow and two sons are his legal heirs. They filed suit to claim retiral benefits of the deceased employee including commuted value of pension, along with interest.

Defendants raised various preliminary objections and pleaded that all retiral benefits have been paid to the widow and family of the deceased employee whereas commutation of pension cannot be permitted to the family of any employee when the employee expired without filing up requisite form for commutation of pension before his death. Since Nathu Ram Bawlia died without applying for commutation of pension in prescribed form, the plaintiffs are not entitled to commuted value of pension. It was also pleaded that Nathu Ram Bawlia had retired on 31.05.2000, pursuant to voluntary retirement sought by him.

(a) apply to the Head of Office in Form-I after the date of his retirement;

(b) ensure that the application in Form-1 duly completed, is delivered to the Head of Office as early as possible, but not later than one year of the date of his retirement. Provided that in the case of an applicant:-

(a) xxxxx

(b) xxxxx

2) An applicant who applies for commutation of pension within one year of the date of his retirement but his application in Form-1 is received by the Head of Office after one year of the date of his retirement, shall not be eligible to get his pension commuted, without medical examination. Such an applicant, if he desires to commute a fraction of his pension, shall apply afresh in Form 2 in accordance with the procedure laid down in Chapter IV.

(c) No such application shall be entertained if the period is less than three months from the date of superannuation of the railway servant; and

(d) The railway shall have not liability for the payment of the commuted value of pension if the Railway servant dies before the date of superannuation or forfeit claim to pension before such retirement"

Lower appellate Court held that admittedly Nathu Ram Bawlia had not applied for commutation of pension after retirement and before his death and, therefore, in view of Rule 14 of the Pension Rules, benefit of commutation of pension cannot be granted. Same contention has been raised by learned counsel for the respondents before me. However, learned counsel for the appellants contended that according to Rule 14 of the Pension Rules, an employee is entitled to apply for commutation of pension upto one year after retirement and since Nathu Ram Bawlia the retired employee died just a month after his retirement, he could not apply for commutation of pension, although he had right to do so till expiry of one year after his retirement and, therefore, benefit of commutation of pension should not be denied to the plaintiffs being legal heirs of the deceased employee.

I have carefully considered the rival contentions. Rule 14 of the Pension Rules clearly stipulates that application in prescribed form could be made by the retired employee till one year after his retirement. In this case, Nathu Ram Bawlia retired on 31.05.2000 and died on 03.07.2000. He thus died before the expiry of one year after his retirement, during which period he had right to apply for commutation of pension. Consequently, if the deceased employee could not apply for commutation of pension on account of his death, the said benefit cannot be denied to the plaintiffs. In this view, I am supported by judgment of this Court in the case of Veer Bhan versus State of Haryana and others, 2009 (4) SCT 444. In that case, the employee retired on 31.07.2006 having sought voluntary retirement and she died on 09.05.2007. Her husband sought commutation of pension. The employer State of Haryana denied the said relief on the ground that the deceased did not apply for commutation of pension. However, this plea of the State was negatived and it was held that husband of the retired employee was entitled to benefit of commuted value of pension. In that case, the retired employee had died more than 9 months after her retirement whereas in the instant case, the retired employee died less than 5 weeks after his retirement and, therefore, in the instant case, retired employee had no sufficient opportunity to submit requisite application in prescribed form for commutation of pension. Consequently, the plaintiffs cannot be denied the said benefit.