The Andhra Pradesh High Court has directed the state authorities to pay a widow pension arrears from the date of her application, ruling that an eligible beneficiary cannot be deprived of benefits because officials delayed processing her claim.
In Tadisetti Tirupatamma v. State of Andhra Pradesh & Others (Writ Petition No. 31325 of 2024), Justice K. Sreenivasa Reddy held on 3 September 2026 that administrative delays and policy-related restrictions could not be used to deny pension benefits to a woman whose eligibility was undisputed.
The court directed the authorities to calculate and pay the arrears from 16 March 2024, when the woman applied for widow pension, until the commencement of regular monthly payments. Any pension already paid must be adjusted against the arrears, and the authorities must complete the process within eight weeks of receiving the order.
Why was the widow’s pension application delayed?
The petitioner, Tadisetti Tirupatamma, had applied for widow pension on 16 March 2024 after her husband, who was a person with a and had been sanctioned a pension, died on 14 July 2023.
Her application remained pending despite her meeting the eligibility criteria under the state’s social security pension scheme. She approached the High Court after repeated attempts to get the authorities to process her application failed.
The state authorities attributed the delay partly to the Model Code of Conduct during the 2024 Lok Sabha and Andhra Pradesh Assembly elections, arguing that fresh social security pensions could not be sanctioned during that period. They also contended that the scheme did not provide for arrears from the date of application.
Following an earlier direction from the High Court on 8 January 2025 to decide her application, the authorities sanctioned her pension in January 2026. She began receiving ₹4,000 a month from February 2026, but the arrears remained unpaid.
What did the court say about pension arrears?
The court noted that the state’s operational guidelines prescribed a period of 21 working days to complete the application process. It also referred to the government’s June 2024 order restoring the scheme as the NTR Bharosa Pension Scheme and increasing the monthly pension for widows and other eligible categories from ₹3,000 to ₹4,000, effective 1 April 2024.
The order provided for the enhanced pension to be disbursed from 1 July 2024, along with three months of arrears.
The court observed that the petitioner was not seeking benefits for a period during which she was ineligible. Instead, she was seeking for the period in which her application remained pending despite her eligibility being established.
It held that the authorities could not take advantage of their own failure to process her application within the prescribed timeframe and deprive her of the benefits. The Model Code of Conduct could explain a temporary restriction on sanctioning pensions, but it could not extinguish an eligible applicant’s entitlement for the subsequent period, the court said.