An army personnel is not entitled to any "disability pension" benefit if the said disability is not attributable to the military service rendered, the Supreme Court has said.
Such a benefit can be claimed by an Army personnel only if the disability was aggravated while rendering the military service or was attributable to the service rendered, a bench of Justices Arijit Pasayat and J M Panchal has ruled.
The apex court passed the ruling while upholding the appeal filed by the Union Government challenging the orders passed by the Rajasthan High Court for granting "disability pension" to Surinder Singh Rathore, who was working as a Signal Man in the Army and discharged from service due to failing vision.
Earlier, a single judge bench and a division bench of the Rajasthan High Court had ordered the Government to pay "disability pension" to Rathore despite the fact that the medical board constituted by the Defence Ministry had rejected his plea.
In May 1993, Rathore was released from service by the Army authorities after it was detected that he was suffering from "Maculapathy (RT) Eye"-a condition in which a person's vision starts diminishing. His disability was assessed at 30.
He was released from service on the basis of the report submitted by the "Release Medical Board" which however opined that the disability was "neither attributable to nor aggravated by military service."
SC's ruling on disability pension for Army personnel
Comment: Signalman Surinder Singh Rathore had to wrestle and battle for 15 years through cobweb of laws and red- tapism to get a final verdict/ ruling. I am sure the recently constituted Army Tribunal will be able to dispose off cases at a faster pace.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
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Neither the "Report my Signal -Blogs" nor the individual authors of any material on these Blogs accept responsibility for any loss or damage caused (including through negligence), which anyone may directly or indirectly suffer arising out of use of or reliance on information contained in or accessed through these Blogs.
This is not an official Blog site. This forum is run by team of ex- Corps of Signals, Indian Army, Veterans for social networking of Indian Defence Veterans. It is not affiliated to or officially recognized by the MoD or the AHQ, Director General of Signals or Government/ State.
The Report My Signal Forum will endeavor to edit/ delete any material which is considered offensive, undesirable and or impinging on national security. The Blog Team is very conscious of potentially questionable content. However, where a content is posted and between posting and removal from the blog in such cases, the act does not reflect either the condoning or endorsing of said material by the Team.
Blog Moderator: Lt Col James Kanagaraj (Retd)
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