E-Paper
‘SC verdicts ignored’, complaint to Chief Justice
The Chandigarh-based All India Ex-servicemen Welfare Association (AIEWA) has complained to Chief Justice of India P.Sathasivam against Chandigarh Bench of Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) ignoring Supreme Court judgments on various pension issues.
The Chandigarh-based All India Ex-servicemen Welfare Association (AIEWA) has complained to Chief Justice of India P Sathasivam against the Chandigarh Bench of Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) for ignoring the Supreme Court judgments on various pension issues.
The Chandigarh Bench has jurisdiction in Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh.
In a letter to the Chief Justice, AIEWA's secretary general Chanan Singh said there was a lack of respect for the Supreme Court, high court and coordinate benches which favoured ex-servicemen.
He complained that the bench expressed full sympathy openly "with the ministry of defence (MoD) all the time and acting in a manner that is more like a government office rather than a judicial body".
The letter claimed that the bench did not insist on implementation of judgments and "petitions were being adjourned for months together without insisting on appearance of any representative of the MoD".
"Huge costs for non-implementation of decisions are illegally being directed to be deposited in the name of the registrar, which is a practice not prevalent in any court of tribunal in the country," Singh said in the letter.
He said, "All efforts are made to reject original applications filed by poor people on hyper-technical grounds forcing them to again file cases resulting in burden on the poor litigants."
The copy of the AIEWA's complaint has also been marked to AFT chairperson Justice Prakash Tatia, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and defence minister AK Antony.
