Supreme Court rings the bell but would we ever wake up?
“Why are you after disabled military personnel?” was the query of a Division Bench of the Hon’ble Punjab & Haryana High Court recently while dismissing a Letter Patents Appeal (LPA) filed by the Union of India against a Single Bench decision awarding disability pension to an old veteran. In reply, the Central Govt Counsel very fairly informed the Hon’ble Court that though legal advice was tendered against filing of an appeal and the issue involved was a covered matter, the authorities still insisted on challenging the decision.
It is time to tame these legal pundits in Delhi who are acting like raging bulls and filing mindless appeals against verdicts rendered in pensionary matters in favour of disabled veterans. These scheming legal minds work in a simple and rudimentary fashion – file appeals in almost all cases, take the cases to the Hon’ble Supreme Court - take a chance and in case of even one single verdict in favour of the govt, the same would be flaunted all over to introduce impediments in the system of grant of benefits to released and retired service-members. These old hands in the legal advisory system clearly know that poor veterans would not be able to (afford and) represent themselves properly before the Apex Court which in turn gives them a free hand to twist legal issues while articulating them before the Supreme Court which sometimes results in decisions that can hardly be labelled well-rounded.
Two examples that come to mind are Lt Col P K Kapur’s case where the govt faultily, incorrectly and misleadingly informed the Apex Court that rounding-off / broad-banding of disability percentage for calculating disability element was introduced as a benefit to cater for decreased service tenure of invalided personnel and hence was not applicable to personnel who retire on completion of terms of engagement or superannuation. The retired officer concerned, who was arguing in person without proper legal assistance, could not rebut the contention leading to a verdict against him. Needless to say, broad-banding / rounding-off was actually introduced to counter medical subjectivity and mistakes & disagreements of medical boards and not to cater for shortened tenures on invalidation. In yet another case, the govt appealed to the Supreme Court against grant of disability pension for an injury sustained while on leave and contended that the verdict of the High Court was untenable since the person did not have the requisite length of service to earn a disability pension, again there was no proper assistance rendered to the Court and the decision of the High Court was reversed. But the decision of the High Court was reversed on the basis of a false statement again by the Union of India, since in reality, there is no minimum service requirement for earning a disability pension and disability pension in fact is even admissible to recruits under Regulation 181 of the Pension Regulations. Fortunately this false statement of the Union of India which was not rebutted by the poor veteran’s counsel (if there was any) is recorded in the order of the Apex Court and shall ultimately prove to be an albatross around the Union’s legal neck, mark my words.
The buck stops there, at Delhi, at the offices of the Legal Advisor (Defence), the Director (Pensions) and to an extent the Director PS-4 (Legal). Mr Antony should instill a sense of judiciousness in these authorities. By filing frivolous and mindless appeals and by tacitly misleading Hon’ble Courts, they are not showing any loyalty to the Indian State or the Auditors but on the contrary are displaying a sense of insensitivity and disregard to this great nation and its even greater protectors. The disparaging remark of the Hon’ble Supreme Court is landmark in the sense that it signifies that from now on frivolities may not be accepted. There is a requirement of a shriller alarm bell, I see it coming round the corner, but would we still wake up ? Beggary is illegal, ban it here too !.
Posted by Navdeep / Maj Navdeep Singh
Read the complete Game Plan of MOD
Supreme Court rings the bell but would we ever wake up?
Comment: The greater game plan of MOD is to post pliable Officers to AHQ to downgrade the chain of command and stall the Judicial Rulings with sinster designs!
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