HC asks govt if pension has been disbursed to aged people

The Delhi High Court today asked the Delhi Government whether it has disbursed pension to the aged and disabled people who were earlier covered under the schemes of municipal corporations.

Justice A K Chawla also asked the government to file a report indicating compliance of a division bench order last year, or face strict action.

The single judge was hearing a contempt petition filed against the Delhi chief secretary and three MCD commissioners for not giving to the Delhi government a list of beneficiaries of pension schemes for aged and disabled people.

While disposing of the PIL, a division bench of the high court had on January 20, 2016 directed all the three MCDs to furnish list of the aged beneficiaries of pension under the MCD schemes to the Delhi government in four weeks.
 

It had also directed the government to process the payment cases after receiving the lists and other particulars from the MCDs.

During today's hearing, the court said the compliance report should be filed by the government within a week before the next date of hearing on December 8.

The Delhi Government's counsel said they were taking steps to disburse the pension.

Advocate Ashok Aggarwal, appearing for NGO Social Jurist which has filed the contempt plea, argued that the government was not making any effort to comply with the last year's order and they should depute officials to visit the houses of the beneficiaries for verification.

The plea has alleged that the government and civic bodies were "willfully and deliberately disobeying and not complying with the court's order" passed last year.

Aggarwal had earlier submitted that the authorities have failed to do so, resulting in continuous non-payment of stipend or pension amount of Rs 1000 per month to over two lakh destitutes for the past three years.

Initially, the NGO had filed the PIL highlighting the fact that East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) had abruptly stopped paying the pension to nearly 44800 disabled/widow/old aged persons who were allowed stipend or pension under the MCD pension schemes.

The court was informed that EDMC's action was arbitrary and illegal and also in utter violation of fundamental right to life of the affected persons.

During the pendency of the PIL, the NDMC, SDMC and Delhi government were impleaded as respondents.

As per the SDMC, there were 81,800 beneficiaries and they were not paid stipend/pension due to financial crunch.

It was submitted that nearly two lakh old aged pensioners were denied monthly pension or stipend by three MCDs that had badly affected the lives of these two lakh old aged persons.

In response to this, the court had asked Delhi government to process the payment after receiving the lists and other particulars from the MCDs.