DISABILITY PENSION

From: col h s kaushal
To: jagga17_chd@dataone.in
Sent: Sunday, September 19, 2010 7:28 AM
Subject: DISABILITY PENSION


Dear Col Kahlon Sir,
I have forwarded some of the emails to you. Hope some material with regard to disability pension would be usefull to you for prepering the case. You may contact Lt Gen Oberoi for more info, he being the President of the disabled soldiers' org..
Also you may like to contact Maj Navdeep who is the Advocate at Punjab & Haryane High Court.
Regards
Col H S Kaushal
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Attatchment
Pre-2006 disability pensioners may have something to look forward to
During the 5th CPC regime, disability pension of defence personnel was calculated on a slab-system basis while civil disability pensioners were placed on a percentage basis.


While defence personnel were granted disability element @ Rs 2600 for officers, 1900 for JCOs and 1550 for Other Ranks (all rates for 100% disability), civilians were granted a disability element @ 30% of basic pay. The slab system was beneficial for some lower ranks of the forces but was not quite congenial to the overall scenario.


Recognising this anomaly, the 6th CPC rightly recommended that even defence personnel should be placed on a percentage system of calculating disability element. However while accepting the new dispensation, the Govt made it applicable only to post-2006 pensioners while retaining the old slab system for pre-2006 pensioners. This resulted in a great disparity between pre and post-2006 disabled personnel. To take an example, a General who may have retired on 31 December 2005 was entitled to a disability element of Rs 5880 per month while a General who retired a day later with the same disability on 01 January 2006 was entitled to Rs 27000 as disability element. The injury is the same, the rank is the same but the disability element, well… The issue has been discussed in more detail in this earlier post with examples.
The above seemed even more unjustified in the light of the fact that when the percentage system was introduced for civil disability pensioners in the 5th CPC, it was made applicable to pre-1996 (pre-5th CPC) pensioners as well. Moreover when the 6th CPC had tried to remove this anomaly between defence and civil disability pensioners, the said rectification had to date back to the inception of the anomaly (1996) and not from a prospective date. The Hon’ble Courts have also time and again ruled that when an anomaly is rectified, it has to date back to the time when such an incongruity came into being and not from the date when the decision of such rectification is taken.


Thankfully, there are indications that the new stipulation is going to be extended to pre-2006 disability pensioners too, very soon. Personnel who retired prior to 01 January 2006 would then also be placed on a percentage system for calculation of disability element. Of course this shall be subject to a minimum grant of Rs 3100 as disability element for 100% disability. This should take care of a very major grey area as far as our disability pensioners are concerned.
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