End litigations against disabled soldiers, veterans urge Rajnath Singh

A section of ex-servicemen have approached Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, averring that officers from the ministry’s finance wing and the Army’s Judge Advocate General’s Department have “unleashed a terror of litigation on disabled soldiers, old pensioners and widows” in all courts in the country and have sought his intervention to put an end to this.

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In a letter written to the minister today, the Chandigarh-based All India Ex-Servicemen Welfare Association stated that this was the first time in the history of India that almost all court and tribunal orders passed in favour of defence personnel, pensioners and widows were being challenged in the High Courts and in the Supreme Court.

The letter pointed out that the then defence minister AK Antony first moved to end such litigation when informed about it. On Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intervention later, then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar took strong steps and ended the litigation and filing of frivolous appeals. During the tenure of Nirmala Sitharaman as the minister, all such appeals were withdrawn in 2019.

The letter added that that it was well-known that the stress and strain of military service affects the health of soldiers and officers due to which they contract many disabilities, sometimes at young ages, which were aggravated by service conditions. Living away from family, residing in barracks, inability to take care of domestic issues, constant movement, field area postings, etc, take a toll on health.

As a result, the lifespan of military personnel is lesser than civilian employees. Yet they are refused disability benefits due to which there is a litigation. Once the courts and tribunals decide in favour of soldiers and their widows, the ego of officers gets hurt and they start filing writ petitions and appeals against them in High Courts and Supreme Court, the letter added.