Vijay Mohan
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, February 12
The Armed Forces Tribunal has ruled that the next of kin of a soldier who dies while on duty combating natural calamities is entitled to higher pensionary benefits than those applicable to death during routine service.
Closing the case of the widow of a soldier, who lost his life while extinguishing a forest fire on the Indo-China border, the tribunal has directed the Centre to grant her Liberalised Family Pension rather than Special Family Pension that she was getting.
Liberalised Family Pension is equivalent to the last drawn emoluments of the deceased, and is applicable in case where death occurs during operations or other specified field circumstances, whereas Special Family Pension is 60 per cent of the last drawn pay.
Champa Devi’s husband, late Naik Surinder Kumar of the Punjab Regiment, was deployed near the China border in the northeast when he died after he was called to assist in extinguishing a forest fire. He died after a tree fell on him.
Though the Army had declared the death a “battle casualty” as per applicable provisions, the office of the Principal Controller of Defence Accounts (Pensions) at Allahabad had rejected her papers saying the death fell in the category of rules which dealt with organised sports and recreation.
Setting aside the rejection order of the accounts branch, the tribunal’s Bench comprising Justice Mohammad Tahir and Vice Admiral HCS Bisht held that the death fell in the category of the rules that dealt with deaths arising out of duty during natural calamities, which entitled a widow to Liberalised Family Pension.