Disabled military veterans have found a voice in the Rajya Sabha. BJP MP Smriti Irani has raised the issue of denial of benefits to disabled soldiers, stating that this is amounting to injustice towards disabled soldiers by the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
Supported by MPs across party lines, Irani stated in the Upper House that though rules for grating disability pension to disabled soldiers were inherently liberal as also held by the Supreme Court in a recent judgment of Dharamveer Singh vs Union of India, the same were being technically and restrictively interpreted by the ministry, leading to denial of disability pension.
She also stated that while employment of civilian employees was protected in case of disability, the same was not applicable on defence personnel who could be released without any kind of pension on account of non-service connected disabilities if their service was less than 10 years, leading to denial of the right to live a life of dignity.
The tendency of the MoD of filing appeals in the Supreme Court against verdicts of high courts and the Armed Forces Tribunal in disability pension related matters was also brought to light by her when she stated that majority of civil appeals and SLPs filed by the MoD in the apex court were against their own disabled soldiers.
She further claimed that far from safeguarding the welfare of retired soldiers, sailors and airmen, many of them disabled from battle injuries or the bleak conditions of service, the MoD’s Department of Ex-Servicemen Welfare (DESW), ironically, stonewalled the benefits of military veterans till they were either dead or broke. More than 1 lakh retired defence personnel have been adversely affected.
Military veterans have long protested the policies of the DESW, which they feel harbours an anti-military sentiment and heaps multiple litigation on veterans, disabled soldiers and their families in pensionary matters, unlike the Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare for civilian employees which is highly positive in its approach.
Even decisions of courts and tribunals are openly defied by DESW on the ground that the decisions are ‘against government policy’. Veterans also feel that that they or the military establishment have no representation at policy formulation level in the Defence Ministry.
It is probably for the first time that the issue has been strongly raised in Parliament and supported by MPs of other parties too. Forced litigation and negatively interpreted policies are a cause of major dissatisfaction amongst ex-servicemen.
Courtesy: The Tribune, Chandigarh
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