Re-employment: ‘Treat MNS ex-officers on par with ex-servicemen’
Vijay Mohan
Chandigarh, February 5
The Punjab and Haryana High Court has ruled that former short service commission officers from the Military Nursing Service (MNS) are to be considered as ex-servicemen for the purpose of re-employment in Punjab.
Hearing a plea by Capt Gurpreet Kaur, a Division Bench comprising then Acting Chief Justice Ritu Bahri and Justice Aman Chaudhary held that such officers could not be denied the ex-serviceman status under the “Punjab Recruitment of Ex-Servicemen Rules, 1982”.
The officer had cleared the examination for the Punjab Civil Services in 2021 but her candidature was rejected on the ground that she was not an ex-servicemen since she was not drawing a pension.
Aggrieved, she approached the high court wherein she pointed out that the MNS was an armed force of the Union under the statute and the Punjab rules included short service commission officers, who are released on completion of terms of engagement with gratuity, under the definition of ex-servicemen.
On the other hand, it was in the Central Government rules that the term “armed forces” had been replaced with “Regular Army” after which the ex-servicemen status of MNS officers had become ambiguous due to a letter issued by the Kendriya Sainik Board in 2019, denying them ex-servicemen status for the Centre.
A Single Bench of the high court had earlier dismissed her writ petition by observing that the Punjab rules could not expand the scope of the definition of ex-servicemen mentioned in the Central rules.
Setting aside the judgement of the Single Bench, the Division Bench held that the MNS was an armed force of the Union under law and employment in Punjab would be governed by Punjab rules which recognise officers released on competition of terms with a gratuity as ex-servicemen.
“The eligibility conditions and benefits regarding reservations, etc is the prerogative of the employer, which in the present case is not the Centret but Punjab, which has notified its own rules,” the Division Bench observed.
Armed force: HC
Setting aside the judgment of the Single Bench, the Division Bench held that the Military Nursing Service was an armed force of the Union under law and employment in Punjab would be governed by Punjab rules, which recognised officers released on completion of terms with a gratuity as ex-servicemen
