The Supreme Court Wednesday granted disability pension with arrears from 1996 with 6 per cent interest to a soldier who was released from the Indian Army and denied pension on the ground that his disability was “neither attributable to, nor aggravated by military service”.
Bijender Singh, the petitioner, was discharged from the Army Air Defence Regiment in 1989 with the disability of “seizures” and was refused disability pension, terming that the disability was not linked to military service and was less than 20 per cent.
The Supreme Court held that “the morale of the armed forces requires absolute and undiluted protection.” It reiterated that “the burden would be on the employer to rebut the presumption that the disability suffered was neither attributable to nor aggravated by military service. If the Board is of the opinion that the disease suffered could not have been detected at the time of entry into service, it has to give reasons for saying so.”
Singh moved the Supreme Court after the Chandigarh Bench of the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) dismissed his case in 2018. He contended that as per the law laid down by the apex court, any disability incurred while in service was ordinarily deemed to be service-connected unless it was recorded by the medical board that it had existed before entering service.
Further, while 20 per cent minimum disability was required to claim disability pension by those who were superannuated or discharged on completion of terms of engagement, the 20% requirement was abrogated for those who were discharged on medical grounds, Singh submitted.
The Supreme Court also agreed with the contention that another Bench of the same tribunal with a common member in the case of one Mahal Singh had granted relief, while the similar case of the appellant was dismissed.
The court has held that full arrears of disability pension would flow from 1996 with 6 per cent interest since the SC had already held in a previous judgment that such arrears would flow from 1996, even for pre-1996 retirees.
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Despite multiple judgments by the SC and High Courts (HCs), the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the Army Headquarters have been challenging disability and death benefits to disabled soldiers and widows since October 2023 after coercive action was taken against senior officers for non-implementation of disability pension judgments. Similar appeals were earlier withdrawn in 2019 on the directions of the then Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman after strictures by courts.
Last year, the Supreme Court, the Delhi High Court and Punjab and Haryana High Court dismissed several such cases filed by the MoD and Army.
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