The Punjab and Haryana high court has criticised the authorities for denying disability pension to a Border Security Force (BSF) jawan, who injured himself in a militant attack reported in Bijnour in Uttar Pradesh in December 1991.
“Personnel engaged in protecting the country and its citizens undertake risks which the law recognises through special pensionary provisions. Such recognition does not diminish the rights of other citizens; it reflects the state’s corresponding obligation towards those who suffer disabling injuries while discharging hazardous public duties,” the bench of justice Pravindra Singh Chauhan observed while dealing with a petition from Satyavir Singh from Mahendergarh in Haryana.
He got enrolled as a constable in April 1988 and in December 1991 while on an internal security duty in Bijnour sustained an injury in his right arm (compound fracture of the right humerus), when the cavalcade came under an attack from militants.
He remained hospitalized until February 1992 and thereafter underwent further treatment between May 1992 and June 1992. Although his condition improved, the injury resulted in a continuing deformity of his right arm. His disability was assessed at 45% by the medical board in the year 1996 and in February 2002 got a lump sum compensation amount of ₹12 thousand for the disability, according to the proceedings in court.
According to the proceedings, in 2009, he was declared unfit for further retention in the BSF and he submitted a voluntary retirement request on an assurance that his case would be processed for medical boarding out. Though his retirement request was accepted but not on medical grounds and he was given an ordinary pension. In September 2018, he served a legal notice seeking disability pension and consequential benefits, a request rejected in 2019 claiming that he voluntarily retired and had already received lump-sum disability compensation.
{{/usCountry}}According to the proceedings, in 2009, he was declared unfit for further retention in the BSF and he submitted a voluntary retirement request on an assurance that his case would be processed for medical boarding out. Though his retirement request was accepted but not on medical grounds and he was given an ordinary pension. In September 2018, he served a legal notice seeking disability pension and consequential benefits, a request rejected in 2019 claiming that he voluntarily retired and had already received lump-sum disability compensation.
{{/usCountry}}The court found that the authorities have not disputed that he suffered a gunshot injury in an internal security duty and further that medical board assessed 45% disability and found the petitioner unfit for further retention in 2009.
The court observed that the decision-making authority was consequently required to examine their effect upon the nature of retirement and the pensionary benefits admissible to him. The injury is directly attributable to military service. Hence, the petitioner is therefore fully entitled to the broad banding and grant of regular disability pension.
“His claim deserved an examination responsive both to that medical determination and to the pensionary protections governing such circumstances. A welfare state cannot abandon a soldier who shed blood in defence of the nation against militant operations,” the court remarked adding that he repeatedly represented authorities but to no avail.
“A person who has already borne the physical consequences of militant action should not also be required to move from authority to authority for benefits which the applicable law confers upon him. Administrative decisions in such cases must demonstrate care, clarity and fidelity to the governing provisions,” the court added quashing the June 2019 decision of authorities to reject his claim for disability pension and directed that he be treated as medically boarded out from November 2009 and grant pension as per applicable rules.