ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari has directed the Employees’ Old Age Benefits Institution (EOBI) to ensure payment of a pension for a lifetime to Muhammad Shehzad, a person with visual disability who had been refused pension by EOBI after the death of his father.
According to a President House statement on Thursday, the President said that the person could not be left in a merciless situation by the State knowing the fact that his elders were deceased and were receiving pensions before their deaths.
He regretted that EOBI had shown grave insensitivity by neglecting a special person and that too at a time when all his predecessors had passed away leaving him without any support.
Muhammad Shehzad, who has been blind since birth, had filed a complaint with the Wafaqi Mohtasib, saying that his father, Muhammad Afzal Zafar, was an Old Age Pensioner of EOBI and died in 2016. The complainant said his mother had already passed away during the lifetime of his father. He had requested EOBI to grant him a family pension for life as a disabled legal heir of his late father.
EOBI, however, dismissed his application by placing reliance on Section 22B (3) (i) of the EOB Act, 1976, which says that only male minors under 18 years of age are eligible for a family pension, whereas Shehzad is 44 years old. The Mohtasib closed further investigation of the case after which, he filed a representation before the President of Pakistan.
The President accepted the complainant’s representation and stressed that keeping in view the letter and spirit of the Constitution of Pakistan, particularly Articles 9 and 25, a person with disability could not be deprived of such a pension.
While accepting Shehzad’s representation the President directed EOBI to ensure payment of pension not less than the pension which the complainant’s late father was receiving at the time of his death.
“This pension should be paid to the petitioner out of the existing funds of EOBI”, held the President.
