HON’BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE SHRI G.S. SINGHVI AND HON’BLE SHRI JUSTICE G. V. SEETHAPATHY WRIT APPEAL No.153 of 2006 Between: Lakshmi Suri …Appellant. AND Union of India represented by its Secretary, Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, New Delhi & others. …Respondents :: J U D G M E N T :: Counsel for the appellant : Sri T.D.Dayal, GPA holder. Counsel for Respondent Nos.1 to 2 : Sri A. Rajashekar Reddy, Assistant Solicitor General. Counsel for Respondent No.3 : None. 28th JULY 2006 Per G.S.Singhvi, C.J. This appeal is directed against order dated 24-1-2006 whereby the learned Single Judge dismissed the writ petition filed by the appellant for striking down paragraph 4 of Office Memorandum No.1/16/96, dated 2-12-1996 issued by the Secretary to Government of India, Department of Pension and Pensioners Welfare and for issue of a direction to the respondents to sanction appropriate share in the family pension of her husband late Amarnath Suri, to their three sons namely, Raghunath Suri, Srinath Suri and Sainath Suri, with effect from December, 1997. We have heard Sri T.D.Dayal, GPA holder of the appellant and Sri A. Rajashekar Reddy, Assistant Solicitor General, appearing for respondent Nos.1 and 2 and carefully perused the record. Although the litigation instituted by the appellant has a chequered history and some of the pleadings and documents filed by the General Power of Attorney holder of the appellant contain highly indecorous references to some public authorities and even the orders passed by this Court, but keeping in view the peculiar facts of the case and the principle that such deeds of the litigants appearing in person should not influence adjudication of the cases, we do not consider it appropriate to non-suit the appellant only on that ground. A perusal of the order under challenge shows that the learned Single Judge did not examine and adjudicate the vires of the office memo and non-suited the appellant simply by observing that the issue relating to her marriage with late Amarnath Suri cannot be decided in the proceedings under Article 226 of the Constitution of India and the remedy available to her and her children is to approach the civil court and seek necessary relief in the form of succession certificate or declaration as regards their right to pay part of the pension or other death-cum-retirement benefits. In our opinion, dismissal of the writ petition filed by the appellant is legally untenable and the order under challenge is liable to be set aside, because the learned Single Judge did not go into the legality of paragraph 4 of Office Memorandum No.1/16/96, dated 2-12-1996, the validity of which was specifically challenged in the writ petition. Whether or not the appellant’s challenge to paragraph 4 of the office memorandum is legally tenable and whether she is entitled to seek a direction on behalf of her children for apportionment of family pension and other retiral benefits payable to the family of late Amarnath Suri are questions which ought to have been gone into and decided by the learned Single Judge in the light of the judgment of the Supreme Court in Rameshwari Devi v. State of Bihar[1]. Non-adjudication of these important issues by the learned Single Judge has resulted in failure of justice. We are further of the view that the Civil court cannot adjudicate on the legality and vires of office memorandum dated 2-12-1996 and, therefore, the appellant should not have been non-suited on the ground of availability of alternative remedy of civil suit. We would have ourselves gone into the legality of paragraph 4 of Office Memorandum No.1/16/96, dated 2-12-1996 and other issues raised in the writ petition, but keeping in view the fact that adjudication by the Division Bench would deprive either party of its legitimate right to avail the remedy of appeal, we have thought it proper to refrain from adopting that course. In the result, the appeal is allowed. The order of the learned Single Judge is set aside with the direction that Writ Petition No.25865 of 2005 be listed for fresh adjudication before the learned Single Judge. As a sequel to disposal of the appeal, all the miscellaneous applications filed by the appellant in the writ appeal shall stand disposed of. G.S.SINGHVI, C.J. 28th July, 2006. G. V. SEETHAPATHY, J. ARS/GRR [1] AIR 2000 SC 735