Family pension for second wife of army personnel.

When a person joined in an army he has to give his family details and tell who are all the people dependent on him. Generally, the list will be there with the department.
To get the retirement benefits or death benefits, the dependent should get legal heir certificate from the revenue department. The wife of the employee, his sons and unmarried daughters will be considered as legal heirs. Once the sons are employed they will not get any benefits from his father's office after his death. In this case, the son is now more than 25 years and he will not get anything now.
Did the first wife get the benefits after the death of the employee? Did he register his second marriage? When one wife is alive, the second wife can't be accepted legally as a wife. If the employee married the second wife after losing or leaving legally the first wife, then only she will get a legal heir certificate. Once she gets she can apply for the pension. But if the first wife already availed the benefit second wife will not get any benefit. Based on these facts she can apply by submitting a legal heir certificate.

The family pension is only admissible to the family persons mentioned in the official records of the army person. That is the standard procedure and after the death of the person as well as the wife the benefit is passed on to the children if they are below a certain age ( 25 years ) and are unemployed and in case of daughter she is not married.

Now one important thing in this context is that polygamy is illegal as per Hindu marriage act and if it is a case of polygamy then there is no question of the pension to the second wife. On the contrary if the second marriage is done after the death of the first wife then it is all right but that should be included in the army records with all the supporting documents. There are legal formalities to claim for the property and other assets of the deceased person and all those are to be followed before one can get transfer of the property and asset in ones name.

In this particular case, the basic question is whether the particular army personnel married the second wife when the first wife was alive, or not. If he married the second wife during the lifetime of his first wife, the marriage to the second wife would be null and void. In that case, the second wife would not be eligible for pension. There is no doubt about it.

If the second marriage took place after the death of the first wife, then the question is whether the Army was informed about the marriage. If not, there would be a considerable difficulty at this stage to record the name of second wife as nominee and then grant of family pension to her, especially when the first wife's children continued to draw family pension for a long period.