Pensions Act, 1871

The Pensions Act, 1871 is a short but still-operative law governing how disputes over government pensions and land-revenue grants are handled in Pakistan. Section 4 bars ordinary civil courts from directly entertaining any suit relating to a pension or grant of money or land-revenue conferred by the Federal Government, a Provincial Government, or any former government. Instead, Section 5 requires anyone with a pension claim to bring it to the Collector, Deputy Commissioner, or another officer authorized for that purpose, who decides the claim under rules set by the Chief Revenue-authority.

Section 6 allows a civil court to take up such a claim only after that Collector or authorized officer issues a certificate permitting the case to be tried -- and even then, the court cannot make any order or decree that affects the government's underlying liability to pay the pension, whether directly or indirectly. Section 7 carves out a narrow historical exception for certain pensions granted as compensation for resumption of perpetuity land grants, which can be sued for and recovered like ordinary property. Section 8 requires pensions to be paid by the Collector, Deputy Commissioner, or another authorized officer under prescribed rules, and Section 9 protects the separate rights of anyone entitled to collect land-revenue as a grantee.

Section 10 lets the "appropriate Government" -- defined in Section 3A as the Federal Government for federal pensions and the Provincial Government for others -- commute (convert) all or part of a person's pension into a lump sum, but only with that person's consent and on agreed terms. Section 11 protects certain pensions -- those granted on political grounds, for past service, for present infirmity, or as a compassionate allowance -- from being seized, attached, or taken by a court at a creditor's request. Section 12 goes further and voids any assignment, agreement, sale, or security a pensioner tries to make over such protected pension money in advance. Section 13 rewards informers who prove a pension is being fraudulently or improperly received: the Act states the reward is equivalent to the amount of that pension for a period of six months. Section 14 lets the Chief Controlling Revenue-authority make rules on practical administration matters, such as where and to whom pensions are paid and how pensioner identity is verified.

This is an 1871 Act, and the extract's footnotes show it has been repeatedly amended since (including by the 1937 Amendment Order, the Repealing Act, 1938, the Federal Laws (Revision and Declaration) Act, 1951, and the Central Laws (Statute Reform) Ordinance, 1960). Given its age and long amendment history, only the six-month informer-reward figure is stated explicitly in the extract and can be relied on here; other administrative details should be checked against the current official text.