Pension Benefits: Travails of a Widow

Sir,
May I bring to your notice the plight of an army officers widow and seek the views and advise of the very knowledgeable and highly experienced readers of "Report my Signals" .

The facts of the case are as follows(for keeping the privacy of the family I am ommitting the names of the concerned family):
1. Col "A" took premature retirement on 31st Dec 2007.
2. He was living in NCR region and working in a private organisation.
3. He had applied for the Commutation of his pension but the same was not paid with the other retirement dues.
4. He progressed his commutation case with the CDA for almost one year and finally the commutation was sanctioned and his Bankers PNB, who were also giving his pension, was asked to credit the amount to his account sometime on the 11 Dec 2008.
5. The bank actually credited the same on 3rd Jan 2009.
6. Unfortunately, the officer died due to heart attack on the same day- 3rd Jan 2009.
7. In the meantime the widow has been requesting the bank to pay her the family pension but the bank has been procrastinating on one ground or the other.
8. suddenly, the bank has reverted all the money from her account to itself a couple of days back (on or around 21st apr 2009) saying that the payment of the commutation money was an "over payment" as the officer had died the same day that the commutation money was credited in his account and that as per the CDA letter he should have been alive on the day the money is credited in his account and hence they have to make full recovery!.
9. not only that they have also not credited the arrears of 6th CPC which was sent by a different cheque by CDA to his account for over one month ostensibly to complete the recovery. Another Draft for Rs 50,000/- paid from AOBF has also not been credited to the acoount.
10. the money that was in her bank account in PNB in another station too has been withdrawn and confisicated by the bank.
11. In the first place the Bank has delayed creditiing the commutation money and then without any notice they have started making recovery of the same. they have not started paying her the family pension even though all the paper work that they needed has been done. moreover they have also recovered all the money that was in her bank account and have not credited the two cheques/drafts deposited by her / CDA(arrears of pay)
12. there are several question and wrongs that seem to be perpetuated by the CDA/PNB combine.
13. she has not received any notice or warning for recoevery.
no family pension has started. can they recover all the family pension at the same time?
14. all the money from her account has also been taken away by the bank to make the recovery.
15. are there no rules for banks to function in case of retired officers and their families pension payments and payment of other dues?
16. Is there any time limit laid down within which the payments sanctioned by the CDA are to be credited to the officers account?
17. can the bank affect recoverries in this fashion?

what are the remedies available to the widow now and how can she confront these insensitive people wihtout great deal of hassle? This also raises the problems we all are facing in getting our arrears and dues from SBI and get our new pension calculations worksheets which are not being provided by them. I wonder if there is a method to get redress without great deal of hassle for a lady who is now shiftd to her parents house very far away from NCR.
regards
Brig Chaitanya Prakash (Retd)