AFT Orders Disability Pension To Army Personnel Injured While Procuring Railway Tickets To Return To Posting, Says It Is 'Incidence Of Service'

The Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) Jammu recently ordered disability pension to an army personnel who got injured while travelling to the railway station to book tickets for returning to a military unit. It was of the view that the accident is connected with the service and can thus be considered an 'incidence of service' when assessing an application for the approval of disability pension.

The applicant's bike got imbalanced due to a stray cow while travelling to the station and his left leg was severely injured. The Release Medical Board held the injuries to be neither attributable to nor aggravated by military service and no benefits against the disability pension were extended. It said for getting disability pension, in respect of injury sustained during the course of employment, there must be some casual connection between the disability and Army service, which was missing in applicant's case.

Bench of Justice Umesh Chandra Srivastava, Member (J) and Lt General Ravendra Pal Singh, Member (A) observed the benefit of doubt in these circumstances should be given to the applicant and the disability of the applicant should be considered as attributable to Army service.

"Considering the facts and circumstances of the case, we are of the opinion that this reasoning of Release Medical Board for denying disability element of disability pension to applicant is cryptic, not convincing and doesn't reflect the complete truth on the matter," it added.

In his plea through counsel Arjun Bhatia, applicant pleaded that at the time of enrolment, he was found mentally and physically fit for service in the Army and there is no note in the service documents that he was suffering from any disease at the time of enrolment in Army. The disease of the applicant was contracted during the service, hence it is attributable to and aggravated by Military Service. He pleaded that various Benches of Armed Forces Tribunal have granted disability pension in similar cases, as such the applicant be granted disability pension and its rounding off to 50%.

In order to address the controversy, the bench referred to Madan Singh Shekhawat v. Union of India & Ors, (1999) and held that when a armed forces personnel suffers an injury while returning from or going to leave, shall be treated to have causal connection with military service and, for such injury, resulting in disability, the injury would be considered attributable to or aggravated by military service.

While adhering to the principles set by the apex court on the subject in Jagtar Singh v. Union of India & Ors, Decided on November 02, 202, the tribunal observed the fact that applicant was approaching the Railway Station for getting his ticket reserved for travelling back to join his duty, when he met an accident and sustained an injury resulting into disabilities to the extent of 20% for life, establishes causal connection with Army duty.

It thus allowed the application and the impugned order rejecting the applicant's claim for grant of disability element of disability pension, was set aside.

The applicant is entitled to get disability element of disability pension @20% for life which would be rounded off to 50% for life w.e.f. three years preceding the date of filing of Transferred application, the bench concluded.

Case Title: Arup Laha Vs Union of India.

Counsel For Petitioner: Mr Arjun Bhatia.

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