Injury sustained beyond duty hours qualifies for disability benefits: HC

The bench was hearing a writ petition filed by the defence ministry and the army against a verdict of the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) wherein the tribunal had granted disability pension to Tara Singh of the Defence Security Corps who sustained 30% lifelong disability

A division bench of the Punjab and Haryana high court (HC), comprising Justice Sureshwar Thakur and Justice Sudeepti Sharma, has held that the army cannot refuse disability benefits to a soldier on the pretext that his injury was sustained after duty hours.

Injury sustained beyond duty hours qualifies for disability benefits: HC

The bench was hearing a writ petition filed by the defence ministry and the army against a verdict of the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) wherein the tribunal had granted disability pension to Tara Singh of the Defence Security Corps who sustained 30% lifelong disability when an unknown vehicle hit him near his unit gate at about 8 pm in September 2015 while he was returning to his unit after duty hours.

The government had challenged the judgment of the AFT on the ground that the disability had been declared “neither attributable to, nor aggravated by military service” since the accident took place after duty hours although the solider was not blameworthy for the same.

Rejecting the case filed by the military authorities, the HC has held that disability pension cannot be denied to a person for an injury sustained during ‘respite hours’ since he remains in active service and is not on leave during such period. The court has observed that the petitioner was evidently stationed within the precincts of the military station wherein the disability became entailed upon him, in sequel, the entailment of disability upon the soldier rather during respite hours thus does not dis-entitle him to become a valid recipient of disability pension.

Since October 2023, thousands of petitions have been decided to be filed by the defence ministry and the army against disabled soldiers and widows in multiple high courts across the country and also in the Supreme Court. In 2015 and then in 2019, all such cases against disabled soldiers and other pensioners were withdrawn from courts after orders by the then defence ministers Manohar Parrikar and Nirmala Sitharaman.

The fresh orders to again start challenging verdicts in the HCs and SC were issued after a series of coercive orders were passed by the AFT against officers of the ministry for not complying with its judicial verdicts.