Disability pensions for military personnel must be granted if the disability is attributable to or aggravated by military service, with the onus of proof on the employer to disprove this connection.

JUDGMENT :

C. HARI SHANKAR, J.

WP (C) 3545/2025 [UOI v Ex Sub Gawas Anil Madso]

1. President John F. Kennedy’s stirring words during his inaugural address represent, to this day, the grand summation of everything that patriotism, and love for one’s nation, means and represents:

“Ask not what your country can do for you; ask for what you can do for your country.”

2. There are those of us who eulogize and revere these words, but stop there. Then there are those who make it part of their lives, and are willing to sacrifice their all for their country – who, while we sip our hot cappuccinos by the fireplace, are braving icy winds at the border, willing to lay down their lives at a moment’s notice. Can anything, that the nation, and we as its citizens, give to these true sons of the motherland, ever be too much?

3. And yet, the human body is made of skin, bone, and sinew, and it is not always that the body can keep pace with the spirit. Defending the country, and its countrymen, rarely provides, to the body of the defender, a feeling of comfort, and the conditions in which our defenders defend us are often harsh and inhospitable. The stresses and strains of military life, physical, mental and spiritual, are such as those others of us who continue to lead our daily humdrum lives can at times imagine and visualize, but never experience. In such daunting conditions of existence, the body, and at times the spirit, often gives way.

4. The possibility of disease and disability, therefore, comes as a package deal with the desire, and determination, to serve the country. The bravest of soldiers is prone, given the conditions in which he serves the nation, to fall prey to bodily ailments which, at times, may be disabling in nature, rendering him unable to continue in military service. In such circumstances, the least that the nation can do, by way of recompense for the selfless service that the soldier has lent it, is to provide comfort and solace during the years that remain.

5. It is to this laudable end that provisions have been engrafted, in our laws, providing for financial benefits to such soldiers, or military personnel, who encounter disease or disability which is attributable to, or aggravated by, military service. Among these financial benefits is disability pension, and it is the entitlement of such officers, and soldiers, to disability pension, as available in law, that the petitioners have sought, in this petition, and several others which come before us on a daily basis, to call into question.

6. We proceed, now, to the case before us.

7. This writ petition, at the instance of the Union of India, assails order dated 16 July 2024, passed by the Armed Forces Tribunal, [“the AFT”, hereinafter] in OA 310/2019. By the impugned judgment, the AFT has held the respondent to be entitled to disability pension @ 20%, rounded off to 50% for life in terms of the judgment of the Supreme Court in UOI v Ram Avtar , [2014 SCC OnLine SC 1761]. The arrears have, however, been restricted to three years prior to the date of filing of the OA by the respondent before the AFT.

8. When this petition came up for preliminary hearing before us on 21 March 2025, we informed learned Senior Panel Counsel for the petitioners that there appear to be several judgments of the Supreme Court covering the issue in controversy in favour of the respondent, among others, Dharamvir Singh v UOI , [ (2013) 7 SCC 316 ], UOI v Rajbir Singh , [ (2015) 12 SCC 264 ], and Sukhvinder Singh v UOI , [ (2014) 14 SCC 364 ].

9. Mr. Jivesh Kumar Tiwari, learned Senior Panel Counsel appearing for the petitioners submitted that a Coordinate Bench of this Court has reserved judgment in a batch of writ petitions in which similar issues were involved. We are, however, inundated with cases like this, with 3 to 4 matters being listed before us on a daily basis, against orders passed by the AFT, in most cases following the judgments of the Supreme Court in Dharamvir Singh and Sukhvinder Singh. There i