Denied benefits for 10 yrs, widow of Shaurya Chakra awardee moves AFT

Chandigarh: Highlighting the apathy of accounts establishment of the defence services, a widow of a battle casualty and awardee of country's third highest gallantry award Shaurya Chakra has approached the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) for benefits that have been denied to her by the principal controller of defence accounts (PCDA) for the past 10 years.

Taking up her plea, Chandigarh bench of the AFT comprising Justice Mohammad Tahir and Lt Gen Sanjiv Chachra has issued notice to the ministry of defence (MoD) seeking reply on the issue. In her plea, Sukhwinder Kaur of Patiala has submitted that her husband Naib Subedar Kulwant Singh was killed in 2007 in a massive explosion in an ammunition depot located in counter insurgency area in the Kashmir valley under Operation Rakshak. Kulwant lost his life while saving the lives of several of his colleagues and his body was also not recovered. He was posthumously decorated with Shaurya Chakra by the President of India for displaying conspicuous bravery and was declared a battle casualty.

According to the petitioner, when she had sent her papers to the PCDA office in Allahabad, the accounts officer refused to release the applicable "liberalized family pension" to her despite orders of the competent authority. Repeated requests by the Army also did not elicit any positive action and the case was rejected on the pretext that the soldier had not died in a "terrorist action" though as per rules all deaths in notified operational areas were eligible for liberalized benefits.

Liberalized pension is higher than the ordinary family pension and is given to those died during action.

In her plea before the AFT, Sukhwinder Kaur has sought directions to release her applicable benefits as her husband laid down life in an operational area and was even awarded gallantry award for his act. She has also sought recovery of costs from the erring accounts officer, who denied her benefits.

According to the lawyers dealing with such matters, there are several instances where courts had consistently deprecated such behaviour of the defence accounts department and ruled that the role of the accounts branch was only to calculate and release pension and not to sit over the positive declarations of competent authorities or medical boards. The courts have also held that even deaths due to natural illnesses in operational areas qualify for liberalized family pension.

In 2015, a committee of experts constituted by the defence minister had also castigated financial authorities of the defence ministry for rejecting such claims without any legal authority. In its detailed report, the committee had observed, "We are at a loss to comprehend why negative energy and multiple reams of papers should be wasted on such issues concerning benefits of soldiers and deceased soldiers, which are minor from the organizational point of view, when there are much more important financial matters worth pondering over. We find it difficult to digest as to how logic itself is being stretched to illogical limits due to an all-pervasive pessimistic environment just to deny benefits to our men and women in uniform."