Improvement of Disability Pension for pre-06 retirees :Veteran Prabhjot Singh Chhatwal PLS Retd

Improvement of Disability Pension for pre-06 retirees :
Orders partly issued-Navdeep
The Govt of India has issued certain orders regarding
disability pension in pursuance to the recommendations
of the Committee of Secretaries headed by the Cabinet
Secretary.The benefit of rounding-off / broad-banding
of disability percentage has now been extended to pre-
1-1-1996invalided personnel also. The provisions of the
earlier Govt of India letter dated 31 Jan 2001 which
provided a cut-off date of 1-1-96 for the said benefit, stand amendedaccordingly.The cap on War Injury Pension
restricting thesame to the maximum of ‘last drawn
emoluments’ for personnel invalided out in Category ‘E’
of the above mentioned letter dated 31 Jan 2001 also stands
removed.The orders on calculating disability element on a
percentage basis have not been issued as yet.The benefit of
rounding-off/broad-banding, like before, has only been
extended to persons who were ‘invalided out’ and not to those
who wereretired / discharged on completion of terms of
engagement or on superannuation. The Hon’ble Punjab
Haryana HighCourt in Paramjit Singh Vs UOI, while differing
with the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Lt Col PK Kapoor Vs UOI,
has already held this action to be arbitrary. Surprisingly,
neither the Petitioner nor the Govt had brought to the notice
of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Col Kapoor’s case that
Regulations now themselves provide that persons in Low
Medical Category at the time of retirement are also ‘deemed’
to be invalided out for the purposes of disability pension.The
different treatment between invalided and superannuating
personnel also seems strange in view of the fact that broad-
banding / rounding-off was introduced to curb medical s
ubjectivity since it was felt that different medical boards were
providing different percentages of disability for similar
ailments. To counter such assessment mistakes, the concept
of broad-banding of disability percentage was introduced.
Keeping this in view, it hardly makes any sense to deny broad-
banding to superannuating personnel while granting it to
invalided personnel since that would amountto saying that
medical subjectivity was only existing in medical boards
examining invalided personnel and notthose which were
examining superannuating personnel. This fact of the reason
behind broad-banding was hiddenfrom the Hon’ble Supreme
Court in Kapoor’s case and hence the judgement has no
binding effect on courts inferior being a judgement sub-
silentio. In fact, the judgement was rendered on the incorrect
statement of the Union of Indiathat broad-banding was
granted as a compensation to invalided personnel, a fact
that was sadly not countered by the Petitioner who was
appearing in person.
Veteran Prabhjot Singh Chhatwal PLS Retd.
Mob.098554-09128,Tele-fax 0175-5000896