Invoking former US president John F Kennedy’s epitaph, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask for what you can do for your country,” the Delhi High Court, while upholding the grant of disability pension to two soldiers, has observed that the least that the nation can do, by way of recompense for the selfless service that the soldier has lent it, is to provide comfort and solace during the years that remain.
“There are those of us who eulogize and revere these words, but stop there. Then there are those who make it part of their lives, and are willing to sacrifice their all for their country – who, while we sip our hot cappuccinos by the fireplace, are braving icy winds at the border, willing to lay down their lives at a moment’s notice, the Bench of Justice C Hari Shankar and Justice Ajay Digpaul observed in their order of March 27.
Pointing out that defending the country and its countrymen rarely provides to the body of the defender a feeling of comfort and the conditions in which our defenders defend us are often harsh and inhospitable, the Bench observed “The stresses and strains of military life, physical, mental and spiritual, are such as those others of us who continue to lead our daily humdrum lives can at times imagine and visualise, but never experience. In such daunting conditions of existence, the body, and at times the spirit, often gives way.”
“The possibility of disease and disability, therefore, comes as a package deal with the desire, and determination, to serve the country. The bravest of soldiers is prone, given the conditions in which he serves the nation, to fall prey to bodily ailments which, at times, may be disabling in nature, rendering him unable to continue in military service,” the Bench said.
It is to this “laudable end” that provisions have been engrafted, in our laws, providing for financial benefits to such soldiers, or military personnel, who encounter disease or disability which is attributable to, or aggravated by, military service, the Bench added, while upholding the orders of the Armed Forces Tribunal granting disability pension to the soldiers.
Taking up one of the petitions, the Bench observed that the report of the release medical board acknowledges that the disease suffered by the soldier was contracted 30 years after he had entered military service and there was precious little, in the report to indicate that military service was not the cause of the disease.
The fact that the onset of the disease might have been while the individual was on a peace posting cannot be determinative of the issue of whether the disease was or was not attributable to military service, the Bench said, adding that in such a case, the board has a greater responsibility to identify the cause of the disease for establishing a clear case, which it clearly failed to do.
The Bench made similar observations in the second petition, held that the RMB, without any supportive reasons whatsoever, held the soldier’s physical disability to be neither attributable to, nor aggravated by, military service.
“A non-speaking report, merely holding, without prelude or preface, that the disease, though it arose during the military service of the claimant, was not attributable to or aggravated by, military service, cannot suffice to deny him disability pension,” the Bench ruled while observing that the courts are inundated with cases like this, with 3 to 4 matters being listed on a daily basis against orders passed by the AFT.
