The Chandigarh Bench of the Armed Forces Tribunal directed the Government to release the Liberalized Family Pension and ex-gratia compensation to the widow within a period of three months. (Representational)
Fifteen years after a soldier was battered to death by a fellow soldier who ran amok during deployment in Operation Prakaram in the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the Parliament, his widow has finally been granted her dues by the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT). Harvinder Kaur’s husband, Havilder Narinder Singh of the Army Air Defence, was deployed in Operation Prakaram when he was brutally battered by another soldier in 2002. His death was duly declared attributable to military service in a field area by a statutory Court of Inquiry and also a ‘Battle Casualty’ by the military authorities since it occurred during deployment in an operation notified by the Government of India.
However when her papers were forwarded to the office of the Principal Controller of Defence Accounts at Allahabad for releasing the ‘Liberalized Family Pension’ as per her entitlement , the said office rejected her claim on the pretext that as per them the death was ‘neither attributable to, nor aggravated by military service’. Even the applicable ex-gratia compensation that is granted to deaths occurring while ‘on duty’ was not released to her.
Observing that the death had occurred in an operational area and also the fact that the statutory authorities had already declared the death as ‘attributable to service’, the Chandigarh Bench of the Armed Forces Tribunal comprising Justice Mahavir Singh Chauhan and Lt Gen Sanjiv Chachra has quashed the rejection of the claim and has directed the Government to release the Liberalized Family Pension and ex-gratia compensation to the widow within a period of three months.
Legal experts say that courts have time and again come down heavily upon the Defence Accounts Department for not honouring positive declarations of competent executive and military authorities for disability and death benefits of soldiers and their widows. The Punjab and Haryana High Court, in the year 2002, in a case of a retired Subedar Major of the Army whose claim for disability pension was rejected by the Accounts Branch, had strongly reminded the Govt that the job of accountants was not to sit over the benefits of soldiers but only to calculate and disburse the same.
