A great
Gesture by NDA Government if they stick to the word given by the Raksha
Mantri. But will the Indian bureaucracy ever welcome and
abide by this direction?
NEW DELHI: Going against the advice
of his own babus, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has
decided not to pursue nearly 4,000 disability pension cases pending against his
ministry in courts, a move which will benefit thousands of soldiers waging a
long legal battle.
"I took the decision two days ago
not to pursue such cases because of which about 4,000 cases will automatically
get dropped" he told reporters here.
He said the ministry wanted to
challenge an adverse court order in this regard but he has ordered it not to be
pursued.
However, a lawyer said the government
was left with no choice but to accept.
"Nice gesture by the minister but
there was no other option for the ministry since it was a direction by a three
judge bench of the Supreme Court last month.
"Even MoD's review petition in a
similar case was dismissed in January 2014 by the apex court. The new regime
should have ideally taken suo moto action of withdrawing appeals and thereby
earning goodwill of disabled soldiers," Maj (retd) Navdeep Singh, advocate
of Punjab & Haryana High Court, told PTI.
He said some of the appeals filed by
the MoD involved petty amounts of Rs 155 or Rs 310 per month.
"The minister, who is a very
genuine person, should now ensure the end of such morbid appeals," he said.
There are three bands to judge
disability across the board. Up to 50 per cent disability, a person
was to be given the benefits of a 50 per cent disability holder while a person
with 51-75 per cent disability was to be given 75 per cent disability benefits.
A person with 76-100 per cent disability was to be given 100 per cent
disability benefits.
However, the benefits were granted to
only those who were removed from service by the government on medical grounds,
and not to those who retired after their full service.
by the kind
courtesy of
and photo from IBN
Good that this happened. However, minister doesn't get any credit for it as the SC had ordered it. He has just been smart to make a virtue out of necessity.
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