LAHORE: The Lahore High Court has declared unlawful the restriction limiting family pension eligibility exclusively to widows or widowers, allowing three petitions concerning pension claims by unmarried and divorced daughters.
Justice Syed Ahsan Raza Kazmi issued a 20-page judgment on a petition filed by Zahida Yasmeen, setting aside the relevant departmental orders that had rejected the pension claims.
The court directed the concerned departments to reconsider the applications of the affected women within 60 days and decide the matters in accordance with the law.
In its ruling, the court observed that the term “family” used in the law cannot be narrowly interpreted to mean only a spouse. It further stated that pension is a legal entitlement rather than a discretionary favour granted by the government, adding that administrative rules cannot override the parent legislation.
The court also declared the Finance Department’s clarification dated May 30, 2025, without lawful authority and set it aside. Notifications issued in December 2024 and August 2025 were also struck down to the extent relevant to the case.
Referring to the Supreme Court’s Kanwal Rashid case, the judgment clarified that receiving one pension cannot automatically disqualify an individual from receiving another. Similarly, being a daughter or receiving another pension does not, by itself, constitute grounds for automatic disqualification.
