56 years after pilot’s death in air crash, widow gets higher liberalised pension

About 56 years after her husband, an Air Force transport pilot died in a crash over the snowbound Himalayas, his widow has been sanctioned higher liberalised family pension following judicial intervention by the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT).

In 1968, an AN-12 of the Indian Air Force on a flight from Chandigarh to Leh carrying 102 frontline troops deployed at the Line of Actual Control with China lost contact over the Rohtang Pass and crashed at Dhaka Glacier in Himachal Pradesh.

The first remains of a human body were accidentally discovered by a trekking team of the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in 2003 at a height of 18,000 feet. A special expedition of the Army recovered three more bodies in 2007, while another body was found in 2018 along with wreckage of the aircraft.

Shammi Malhotra, the widow of one of the pilots of the aircraft, Squadron Leader PN Malhotra, who was declared “presumed dead”, was granted ‘Special Family Pension’ as per the then existing orders. Later in the year 2001, deaths in operational areas were included in the entitlement of a higher pension called the “Liberalised Family Pension” (LFP) from January 1996. It was clarified later by the Government that deaths in air missions undertaken in support of troops and security forces deployed in forward areas would also be eligible for LFP with effect from 1996.

Now eligible under the new orders, Shammi Malhotra applied for LFP but her claim was rejected on the pretext that the death took place in 1968 and the provisions of LFP were only applicable from the cut-off date of 1996, and hence she would not be considered eligible for the said benefit.

The Chandigarh Bench of the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) comprising Justice Sudhir Mittal and Air Marshal Manavendra Singh (Retd) has, however, ruled that the wife of the late pilot would be entitled to LFP from 01-01-1996 since the cut-off date of the government letter in question had already been interpreted to apply to pre-1996 cases also but with financial effect from 01-01-1996 by the Supreme Court in the case of Capt KJS Buttar, a disabled Army officer, decided in 2011.

The AFT has directed the release of arrears of LFP within a period of three months.

In the wake of the 5^th Pay Commission recommendations, many benefits were introduced and enhanced from 1996 onwards, initially with a cut-off date of 1996. However, while for civilian pensioners, the benefits were later extended to pre-1996 cases also with financial effect from 01-01-1996, a similar exercise was not undertaken by the Ministry of Defence for its pensioners leading to multiple litigation till the High Courts and the Supreme Court in the past.