THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE N.R.L.NAGESWARA RAO C.M.S.A.No. 85 of 2005 JUDGMENT: The appeal is ﬁled against the judgment dated 23.02.2004 in A.S.No.201 of 2000 on the ﬁle of the VII Additional District Judge (Fast Track Court), Visakhapatnam, which conﬁrmed the order dated 07.02.2000 in S.O.P.No.9 of 1994 on the ﬁle of the Junior Civil Judge, Narsipatnam. The parties are hereinafter referred to as arrayed in S.O.P.No.9 of 1994. An application under Section 372 read with Section 38 of the Indian Succession Act was ﬁled by the wife, daughter and mother of one deceased Appalanaidu, who worked as Librarian at Visakhapatnam, consequent on his death for grant of retiremental beneﬁts. The deceased was said to have died intestate on 27.03.1993. The 1st respondent, who is the appellant herein, claimed that the 1st petitioner, who is the wife of the deceased Appalanaidu, has neglected him and left the company and with the consent and knowledge of the 1st petitioner, late Appalanaidu married the 1st respondent in 1969 and a son was also born, who died after three months. Therefore, she claimed as sole legal heir and also claims to have obtained the legal heir certiﬁcate from the Mandal Revenue Officer. The 2nd respondent, with whom the deceased worked, ﬁled counter contending that the 1st respondent was nominated for the Employees Group Insurance Fund and also the Family Beneﬁt Fund and the records do not show the nomination of the petitioners. During the pendency of the petition, the petitioners 1 and 3 died. After considering the evidence on record, the lower Court held that the marriage with the 1st respondent is not being valid as there was no dissolution, issued a succession certiﬁcate in favour of the 2nd respondent relating to the group insurance, family beneﬁt and gratuity, which were claimed in the petition. Aggrieved by the said order, an appeal has been preferred in A.S.No.201 of 2000 on the ﬁle of VII Additional District Judge (Fast Track Court), Visakhapatnam. In the said appeal also, the order of the lower Court was conﬁrmed. Aggrieved by the said judgment in the appeal, the present appeal is filed. A question of law, that was raised, was whether the nominee of the deceased employee is entitled for succession certificate basing on the nomination? POINT: There is no dispute about the fact that when the marriage between the appellant herein and late Appalanaidu is not valid in view of the fact that the ﬁrst marriage was subsisting and there was no dissolution. Evidently, there is no proof of custom involving customary divorce. If that being so, in view of the provisions of Section 5 of the Hindu Marriage Act, the marriage of the appellant herein is not valid and she cannot claim as a legally wedded wife of late Appalanaidu. The contention of the learned counsel for the appellant is when a nomination has been made and if there is any dispute, it has to be settled only in the Civil Court and not by virtue of the succession proceedings. This Court is not able to agree with the said contention as the purpose of obtaining a succession certiﬁcate is only to decide about the entitlement of the person for the amounts due consequent on the death of the deceased. It is also not in dispute that the appellant herein has ﬁled a suit in O.S.No.29 of 1989 on the ﬁle of the Principal District Munsif, Chodavaram claiming as wife of Thota Nookaraju for partition of his properties. It is proved by Ex.A-3. However, an argument was developed that the appellant lived for longer time with the deceased Appalanaidu and in view of the fact that she was nominated as nominee clearly goes to show that there was some relationship between the appellant and the deceased. In fact, there is not of much dispute about the appellant herein residing with the deceased for a long time even without a valid marriage. In this connection, it is useful to refer to the decision reported in Chanmuniya v. Virendra Kumar Singh Kushwaha[1], wherein the Apex Court considering a claim for maintenance under Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 held that longer cohabitation without valid marriage has to be taken into consideration and maintenance can be granted. In this particular case, the fact remains that the appellant herein lived for long time with the deceased and consequently taking into consideration the fact that the petitioner was nominated to receive the retiremental beneﬁts, the 2nd respondent can consider the right of the petitioner for pension even if the other claims, which were decided by the lower Court, are to be upheld. Therefore, the appeal is dismissed, however, the 2nd respondent is directed to consider the claim for pension for the petitioner after the death of the ﬁrst wife, who is the 1st petitioner. No costs. ________________________ N.R.L.NAGESWARA RAO, J 24-11-2011 MR THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE N.R.L.NAGESWARA RAO C.M.S.A.No. 85 of 2005 DATE: 24-11-2011 MR [1] (2011) 2 SCC (Cri) 666 = (2011) 1 SCC 141