Disabled dependent family pension cannot be denied on deleted conditions or prior non-disclosure once substantive eligibility is shown.

Rule 75 of the Family Pension Scheme for Railway Servants, 1964 extends family pension beyond age twenty-five to a son or daughter with a mental or physical disability that renders the child unable to earn a livelihood. The deleted pre-1995 explanation requiring the disability to have manifested before retirement or death could not be relied on to refuse the benefit. A denial based only on non-disclosure in retirement papers was also unsustainable because an administrative order must stand on the reasons recorded in it, and not on later justifications. On the material, the disabled son's substantive eligibility was established and family pension for life was due.

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Issues: Whether a disabled son of a deceased railway pensioner, who is unable to earn a livelihood, is entitled to family pension for life under Rule 75 of the Family Pension Scheme for Railway Servants, 1964 despite the omission of his name as a disabled dependant at the time of retirement and despite the deletion of the earlier explanation requiring disability to have manifested before retirement or death.

Analysis: Rule 75(6) extends family pension beyond the age of twenty-five years to a son or daughter suffering from a disorder or disability of mind or physical disability so as to render the child unable to earn a living. The earlier explanation requiring the disability to have manifested before retirement or death stood deleted by notification dated 3 February 1995, and the respondents could not rely on that deleted condition to deny the claim. The denial letter proceeded on the ground that the disability had not been disclosed at retirement, but an administrative order must be judged by the reasons stated in it and cannot later be supported by fresh grounds. The record showed that the petitioner had substantial physical disability, that the respondents did not dispute his dependent status in substance, and that the material on record supported the inference that he was unable to earn his livelihood. A family pension scheme intended to provide sustenance cannot be defeated by a hyper-technical insistence on prior nomination where the substantive entitlement otherwise exists.

Conclusion: The petitioner was entitled to family pension for life as a disabled son unable to earn a livelihood, and the refusal to grant the pension was unsustainable.

Ratio Decidendi: Where the governing pension rule grants family pension for life to a disabled son who is unable to earn a living, the benefit cannot be denied on the basis of a deleted explanatory condition or on the absence of prior disclosure in retirement papers if the substantive eligibility is established.

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