Fit at enrolment, later disability entitles Army officer to pension: HC

Any officer serving in the armed forces who was found fit at the time of enrolment and is later found to be suffering from a disability is entitled to the benefit of disability pension by rounding it off.

This has been ruled by the Punjab and Haryana High Court while dismissing a writ petition filed by the Government of India against an order of the Armed Forces Tribunal, Chandigarh, dated September 15, 2023. The tribunal had directed grant of disability pension benefits in favour of ex-serviceman Kashmir Singh by rounding off the disability element of the pension to 50 per cent for two years, from May 1, 2001, to April 30, 2003, though the disability had been assessed at less than 20 per cent i.e. 6-10 per cent.

Counsel for the government submitted that Kashmir Singh joined the Army service on September 14, 1983, and was discharged from service on April 30, 2001, in low medical category due to the disability ‘duodenal ulcer and reflux esophagitis’ and the disability was assessed less than 20 per cent i.e. @ 6-10 per cent by the medical board. The same was held to be neither attributable to nor aggravated by military service. Therefore, as the disability was not assessed at 20 per cent or more — a condition precedent for the grant of disability pension — the tribunal exceeded its jurisdiction in granting relief to the respondent. Hence, the order is unsustainable.

After hearing the arguments, Justice Harsimran Singh Sethi and Justice Rohit Kapoor upheld the judgment of the Armed Forces Tribunal. The Bench said in the present case it was undisputed that no note of any disease had been recorded at the time of the appellant’s acceptance for military service.

Hence, in the absence of any perversity in the impugned order dated September 15, 2023, either on the basis of facts or settled principles of law, no ground was made out for interference by the court in the facts and circumstances of the case, and the writ petition was accordingly dismissed.

The Bench further noted that, as per the judgment in ‘Dharamvir Singh’s’ case, where an Army personnel is found fit at the time of enrolment and is later found to have contracted a disease, the same is presumed to have been aggravated by and attributable to military service.