New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Thursday ruled that armed forces personnel cannot be denied disability pension merely because a disease is described as a “lifestyle disorder” or because it developed while posted at a peace station.
The Court observed that military service remains stressful even in non-operational areas and can contribute to serious health conditions.
A Division Bench of Justice V Kameswar Rao and Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora set aside an order of the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) that had rejected the disability pension claim of a retired Indian Air Force officer suffering from primary hypertension and coronary artery disease.
The Court stressed that it does not matter whether an illness develops in a field area or during a peace posting. What matters is whether the disease has a connection with service conditions.
It noted that military life involves strict discipline, long working hours, frequent transfers, separation from family, and constant readiness for deployment, all of which can cause physical and mental stress affecting health.
The Bench found that the Release Medical Board had failed to provide proper reasons for declaring the officer’s disabilities as neither attributable to nor aggravated by service.
Simply labelling the illness as a lifestyle disorder without identifying specific lifestyle factors was held to be legally unsustainable. The Court also pointed out that the Board itself recorded that the disease was not due to negligence or misconduct by the officer.
The Court rejected arguments relating to obesity, smoking, or alcohol use, noting that these factors were not cited as causes in the Medical Board’s findings. It further held that being overweight alone cannot prove that hypertension or heart disease is self-inflicted. The AFT was also faulted for introducing weight and lifestyle factors on its own, without medical evidence supporting such conclusions.
The Court also found the Medical Board’s reasoning regarding heart disease inadequate, noting that linking a serious cardiac condition to duties performed in the preceding 14 days had no logical basis.
The officer had served in the Indian Air Force for over 40 years and was medically fit at the time of joining. He developed hypertension in 1999 and later underwent open-heart surgery in 2016 after being diagnosed with severe coronary artery disease. Despite his disabilities being assessed at 50 per cent for life, his disability pension claim was rejected, leading him to approach the High Court.
Allowing the petition, the Court quashed the AFT order and directed the authorities to grant disability pension at 50 per cent for life. It ordered payment of arrears from the date of discharge and directed that the amount be released within eight weeks, failing which interest at 12 per cent per annum will be payable.>
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