Vijay Mohan

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 3

It has taken 40 long years of struggle for a differently abled soldier, who had suffered amputation of his leg and consequently invalided out of service, to finally get his due pensionary benefits after the Armed Forces Tribunal came to his rescue.The Tribunal, in order passed a few days ago, has granted him pension from the date of his discharge in 1977. Sepoy Jagdish Chand, who hails from Kangra in Himachal Pradesh, had only about two years of service when while proceeding from his unit to his home on a single day’s casual leave, the bus he was travelling in met with an accident and he lost his left leg.Though the statutory military authorities had declared his disability “attributable to military service” since he was travelling from his unit to his home, the Defence Accounts Department declined to release him his pension, causing him a lot of hardship.Spending most party of his life without pension and running from pillar to post, he ultimately sought his documents under the RTI Act, which proved that not only the Court of Inquiry but the Invaliding Medical Board too had held his disability attributable to service. He thereafter approached the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) for grant of pension.Holding the action of accounts authorities illegal, the AFT granted him disability pension from the date of his release in 1977. The AFT has cited decisions of the Supreme Court and Punjab and Haryana High Court to conclude that administrative or accounts bodies cannot override the declaration of attributability to service by military or medical authorities.