Punjab & Haryana High Court Condemns Centre For Denying Disability Benefit To Soldier Injured During Explosion In 1971 Indo-Pak War

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has criticized the Central Government for denying disability benefits to a soldier who sustained serious injuries during an explosion in the 1971 Indo-Pak war.

The Court rejected the Union Government's petition challenging Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT)'s order whereby the deceased soldier's wife was granted pensionary benefits.

Sham Singh suffered injuries when a bomb from the Pakistan side exploded near him and lost his eyesight due to the attack. The injury suffered by him was held to be neither attributable nor aggravated by the military service. Hence, he filed the application before the AFT in 2017.

The AFT in 2023 directed that the benefits be released to Singh's wife, as he passed away in 2021. Among other grounds, the government argued that Singh should have filed an appeal at the first given opportunity rather than filing Original application after the lapse of 44 years before the Tribunal in the year 2017.

Justice Harsimran Singh Sethi and Justice Vikas Suri said, "It may be noticed that a solider, who fought for the country in Indo-Pak 1971 war and had suffered the injuries during the bomb explosion, cannot be excluded from the grant of entitled benefit especially, when nothing evident has come on record to show that such solider was in knowledge that he is entitled for the benefit of war injury pension due to the disability suffered by him in Indo-Pak 1971 war."

The Court noted that, though, the solider was not aware of the said benefit of war injury pension but the petitioners very well knew that the solider suffered an injury in war and is entitled for the benefit of war injury pension but still the Union has ignored the said fact and did not grant the said benefit in favour of such solider i.e. Sham Singh, for which, he was entitled for and rather expecting such solider to revert back to claim the said benefit.

The Court said, not only this, even the disability suffered by the husband of the respondent Sham Singh was not being treated to be attributable to military service.

"Such an action on the part of the petitioners cannot be appreciated especially when, it relates to solider, who fought for the country and had suffered disability and that too in war between two countries," it observed.

The bench opined that the Central Government should have come forward to grant the benefit of war injury pension to Singh rather than raising an objection qua delay in denying the said benefit to him.

Stating that "the ground taken by the petitioners qua the delay to deny the benefit of war injury pension to Sham Singh cannot be accepted, the Court rejected Centre's plea.

Ms. Shalini Attri, Senior Panel Counsel for the petitioners-UOI.

Title: The Union of India and others v. Ex Sep Sham Singh & another

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