The city bench of the Armed Forces Tribunal on Tuesday fined the Union government ` 50,000 for being insensitive towards a physically challenged soldier and denying him war injury pension
CHANDIGARH: The Chandigarh bench of the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) on Tuesday fined the Union government ` 50,000 for being insensitive towards a physically challenged soldier and denying him war injury pension.
Gurmel Singh, a resident of Lalru, SAS Nagar, was enrolled in the army as infantry soldier in 1983. In January 1989, he was deployed with his unit in Sri lanka for Operation Pawan. During the operation on January 18, 1989, he suffered blast injuries in both his lower limbs with extensive severe shock. “His both feet got damaged. He walks with great difficulty,” said his counsel Brig Rajinder Kumar (retd).
Having suffered the disability, he moved an application for premature discharge and was released in low medical category with 50% disability in 2000, but he was not granted war injury pension. The Union government had denied the claim on the grounds that he had sought discharge from service at his own request on compassionate grounds.
The letter of department of ex-servicemen welfare in the ministry of defence dated September 29, 2009, allows war injury pension to those also who have taken voluntary retirement, but it set a cutoff date of January 1, 2006, whereas Gurmel Singh had retired in 2000.
But the Chandigarh bench ruled that the cutoff date had already been set aside by the principal bench of the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT), New Delhi, vide a judgment dated August 12, 2010.
The bench, comprising Jusitce Surinder Singh Thakur and Lt Gen Sanjiv Chachra (retd), said, “The petitioner couldn’t be deprived of the war injury pension even though he had received the disabilities prior to January 1, 2006. As a matter of fact, it was incumbent to have granted war injury pension to the petitioner by undertaking a review in the matter, which has not been done and the petitioner has been deprived of the war injury pension despite his entitlement to this benefit. Infact, the respondents had shown a quite insensitivity to the fact and have conveniently ignored the rightful claim of the petitioner.”