The Punjab and Haryana High Court has given an important decision in the interest of paramilitary forces, under which the soldiers who take voluntary retirement due to compulsion due to serious illness cannot be denied disability pension.
The decision was given on the petition of Ashok Kumar
The court clarified that if a soldier is suffering from a serious health problem and takes voluntary retirement due to lack of timely departmental decision, then it cannot be considered his personal wish. This decision was given on the petition of Lance Naik Ashok Kumar of Central Reserve Police Force.
Ashok Kumar joined the 13th battalion of CRPF in 1985. During his deployment in Manipur in the year 2000, a serious vision disease called retro bulbar neuritis was detected in his right eye, due to which he lost the ability to recognize colors.
The case remained pending for years
In the annual medical examination of March 2005, he was declared medically unfit for service, but the case was postponed for a year by recommending the force to keep him on light duty.
Ashok Kumar told the court that according to the service conditions of CRPF, colour recognition is extremely important for the soldiers and his visual impairment made him permanently unfit for service. Despite this, the department did not release him from service on time and his case remained pending for years.
In 2009, the board recommended to release Ashok Kumar from service on the basis of ‘invalidation’ but no formal decision was taken on it. Mentally disturbed by this, he applied for voluntary retirement on 22 April 2009, which was accepted by the department.
Later, when Ashok Kumar applied for disability pension, on 19 May 2017, the Director General of CRPF rejected his claim saying that he had left the service voluntarily, so he is not eligible for this benefit.
It was also argued on behalf of the central government that due to voluntary retirement, his disability could not be formally assessed, so he cannot be given the benefit of pension. However, the High Court rejected these arguments and said that serious disability like total loss of vision directly affects the ability to perform duty and failure of the department to take timely decision is a negligence due to which any employee may be forced to take voluntary retirement.
