My client's husband was last seen in the year 1997. He was working in a bank as a bill collector and for reasons unknown he left the family and never came back.
The Indian Evidence Act says that if a person was not seen for seven years, the presumption is that he is dead. This presumption is rebuttable by the one who asserts that the person in question was seen within this seven years and the onus is on him to prove the same.
Keeping in view the above stated position my client applied for the terminal benefits of her disappeared husband from his erstwhile employers.
Though the Bank has in principle agreed to disburse the benefits, is making my client run from pillar to post asking her fill an endless list of forms, affidavits and undertakings.
Let us hope that she does not disappear meanwhile unable to bear the red tapism of this bank. Dont we get a clue as to why their employee disappeared seven years back