Delhi High Court Grants Disability Pension to Retired Army Officer

Court Overturns Armed Forces Tribunal Decision, Recognizes Hypertension as Attributable to Military Service

The Delhi High Court has delivered a landmark judgment, granting disability pension to retired army officer Dropadi Tripathi. The Division Bench comprising Justices C. Hari Shankar and Om Prakash Shukla quashed the Armed Forces Tribunal's earlier decision which denied Tripathi's plea for a disability pension on account of hypertension.

The court found that the Medical Board and specialist reports failed to establish a causal connection between Tripathi's hypertension and obesity, which had been the basis for the Tribunal's denial. The court held that in the absence of a contrary finding, hypertension is presumed to be attributable to military service. Tripathi, who served as a Nursing Officer from November 1969 until her retirement in July 2006, had been assessed with a 30% disability due to hypertension. 

In its judgment, the court referenced several key Supreme Court rulings, including Dharamvir Singh v. Union of India and Bijender Singh v. Union of India, establishing that the onus of proving a disability's causal connection to military service lies with the administration, not the individual. The court noted the absence of any medical finding that attributed her hypertension to non-military factors.

The court directed the Union of India to release the disability pension with arrears from the date of Tripathi's retirement, along with an interest rate of 9% per annum for delayed payments. Additionally, the court granted the benefit of rounding off the disability pension to 50%, in line with the Supreme Court's decision in Union of India v. Ram Avtar.

This judgment underscores the judiciary's commitment to upholding the rights of military personnel to receive due benefits and reaffirms legal precedents on disability pensions.

Bottom Line:

Disability pension - Hypertension not causally connected to obesity as per medical reports - Presumption of attributability to military service in absence of contrary evidence - Entitlement to disability pension and rounding off benefits. 

Statutory provision(s): Armed Forces Tribunal Act, 2007

Dropadi Tripathi v. UOI, (Delhi)(DB) : Law Finder Doc Id # 2786213