OVER THE PAST FIVE YEARS,
EX-SERVICEMEN have been agitating against the injustice meted out to them by
the Central government. They have lost faith in the Department of Ex-Servicemen
Welfare (DESW), created specifically to take care of their welfare.
Ex-servicemen have won 90 per cent of the cases filed in the Armed Forces
Tribunals and the Supreme Court against the government, but the government has
appealed in all the cases through the DESW.
The veterans have approached the
Prime Minister and the Defence Minister to seek redress in numerous cases where
they felt injustice had been done to them but to no avail. The Supreme Court’s
judgments in their favour have either not been implemented or not been
implemented in letter and spirit in cases pertaining to disability pensions,
payment of arrears with retrospective effect from January 1, 2006, rank pay,
and hospital charges on authorised Ex-servicemen Contributory Health Scheme
(ECHS) rates for medical treatment abroad.
The government files en masse
appeals against retired defence personnel whenever any case relating to pension
benefits is decided in their favour by any court of law or the Armed Forces
Tribunal. Facing the brunt of the government’s apathy is the category of
disabled and war-disabled soldiers. Most of the special leave petitions and
appeals filed by the Ministry of Defence in the Supreme Court are against the
grant of disability or war injury benefits to disabled and war-disabled
soldiers. As a result, the veterans are forced into expensive litigation.
Over 3,000 cases decided in favour
of defence personnel by the Armed Forces Tribunal have not been implemented;
the Defence Ministry has contested all these judgments in the Supreme Court.
Imagine the plight of a widow of a sepoy living in a far-flung rural area. How
is she going to find the resources to fight her case in the Supreme Court? The
tribunals were created for delivering speedy justice to defence personnel at
minimum cost. But the Ministry’s decision to appeal against the tribunal’s
judgments has not only delayed justice but also made it near impossible for the
defence personnel to fight their cases. The Armed Forces Tribunals do not have
contempt powers to get their judgments implemented whereas Central
Administrative Tribunals (CATs) are vested with such powers.
This is the biggest cause of
heartburning in the military community today. Military personnel with
non-service-related disabilities discharged with less than 10 years of service
remaining are not entitled to any form of pension, whereas the employment of
civilian employees who “acquires a disability during his service” is protected
under Section 47 of the Persons with Disabilities Act, 1995.
As per the Sixth Central Pay
Commission recommendations, all government servants are allowed three assured
career progressions. Civilians who retire at the age of 60 are allowed
promotions at 10, 20 and 30 years of service, and soldiers at eight, 16 and 24
years. However, since jawans are forced to retire early, largely between 15 and
19 years of service, to keep up the young profile of the forces, they miss out on
at least one assured career progression, unlike their civil counterparts, who
serve their full term until superannuation. It has been proposed to the
government that the third career progression should be given to jawans
automatically; they should be promoted to the rank of naib subedar at the time
of retirement. Surprisingly, this demand has not been accepted.
Widow’s
pension
Widow’s pension is one area of
concern to the defence community that has received little attention from the
government. A sepoy’s widow pension has remained a meagre Rs.3,500 a month
while other sections of government employees have received periodic increases
in such pension. The minimum family pension in respect of defence widows must
be enhanced from Rs.3,500 to Rs.10,000 a month.
It is common knowledge that soldiers
retire ahead of their time. What is not known, however, is that their life
expectancy is shorter than that of civilians. The Institute of Applied Research
in Manpower Analysis (IARM), which studied the lifespan of civilian employees
at the behest of the Fifth Pay Commission, arrived at 77 years as the average
life expectancy of a civilian government servant. The Railways conducted a
similar exercise for their personnel and assessed that they achieved an average
lifespan of 78 years. No such study was conducted for defence personnel since
it was generally believed that soldiers lived longer than civilians. However,
Major General (retired) Surjit Singh, AVSM (Athi Vishisht Seva Medal), VSM
(Vishisht Seva Medal), who headed the Army Cell of the Fifth Pay Commission,
carried out a detailed study in 2005 along with other experts. The study
revealed that the average lifespan of defence officers was 72.5 years; that of
junior commissioned officers (JCOs) 67 years; and that of other ranks was
between 59.6 and 64 years.
These findings were forwarded to the
Chief of the Army Staff General J.J. Singh on July 7, 2005, by Lieutenant
General (retd) M.M. Lakhera, PVSM (Param Vishisht Seva Medal), AVSM, VSM, who
was Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry. The findings were reported by all
national newspapers and a question was asked in Parliament on the subject.
Pranab Mukherjee, who was the Defence Minister then, maintained that the issue
would be examined in detail. Nothing was heard about it after that.
Stress and strain of early
retirement is one of the major reasons for the lower life expectancy among the
defence personnel. Their legitimate demand for an assured second career until
the age of 60 through an Act of Parliament has not yet been accepted.
While the pensions of all ranks were
enhanced with effect from September 24, 2012, to redress the anomaly of the
Sixth Pay Commission, the request to enhance the pension of JCOs
proportionately was not granted. Majors with 13 years and more of service who
retired before 2004 have been denied the benefit of the rank of lieutenant
colonel (that is, the benefit of pay band-4 in the revised scale of the Sixth
Pay Commission).
The government’s policy to grant
lieutenant colonel rank on completion of 13 years of service was made
applicable with effect from 2004. It would have been only just to grant all
those who retired before 2004 in the rank of major with 13 years of
commissioned service (this number being finite) the benefit of pension on the
scale of lieutenant colonel. The strong plea in this regard has not been
accepted.
Also, the non-functional upgrade
(NFU) granted to civilian employees has been denied to defence personnel,
thereby putting them at a disadvantage.
One Rank
One Pension
One of the major demands of veterans
is same pension for same rank and same length of service, that is, same rank +
same length of service = same pension, irrespective of the date of retirement.
They want a legislative guarantee to this. Although all major political parties
have agreed to this in principle and frequently incorporate it in their
election manifestos, this 40-year-old demand has not been implemented. The
bureaucratic excuses in the form of administrative, legal and financial hurdles
in implementing the demand were heard in detail in 2011 by the Rajya Sabha
Petition Committee set up to look into all aspects of the demand and rejected
them in the strongest terms. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had agreed to this
provision in principle, but her untimely death scuttled the proposal.
Successive Standing Committees on Defence and the Rajya Sabha Petition
Committee have recommended this but to no avail.
Before 2006, the difference in the
pensions of major general and lieutenant general was only Rs.1,400.
Subsequently, it became Rs.700. With the extension of higher administrative
grade (HAG) and HAG+ to the rank of lieutenant general and above, the
difference in pension is more than Rs.8,000 even after the increase with effect
from September 24, 2012. The government has overlooked the Sixth Pay Commission
recommendations, which suggested that all government employees with a basic pay
of Rs.20,000 and above be clubbed under the same pay band. Major generals
retire with a basic pay of Rs.22,400 and above while lieutenant generals retire
with a basic pay of Rs.23,500 and above. Non-inclusion of major generals in HAG
has caused an anomaly.
On losing the case, the Defence
Ministry filed a review petition in the Supreme Court, denying enhanced arrears
to army pensioners as ordered by the Delhi High Court with retrospective effect
from January 1, 2006, instead of September 24, 2012.
Civilian employees are provided
health care under the Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS) while
ex-servicemen are covered under the ECHS. The provision of budget for the CGHS
is calculated (for 2013-14) at the rate Rs.10,700 for every beneficiary while
for the ECHS, it has been budgeted at Rs.3,150 a beneficiary. As a result,
super-speciality hospitals do not offer themselves for ECHS empanelment. Over
80 per cent of the health care units have withdrawn from empanelment in view of
delayed payment of bills and inadequate rates for various medical procedures.
This has resulted in unsatisfactory or poor medical care for ex-servicemen.
Sophisticated procedures have not been included in the ECHS. The veterans’
request for inclusion of the latest medical procedures on the ECHS benefits
list has not been accepted yet. Ex-servicemen had requested that the budget be
enhanced and not be less than the CGHS rates.
Here is an example to illustrate the
poor nature of health care benefits provided by the government to
ex-servicemen. Non-availability of funds with the ECHS and, as a consequence,
non-payment of hospital dues made an empanelled hospital in Gurgaon in the
National Capital Region to stop accepting patients for cashless medical
treatment. Ex-Subedar Prakash Chandra Tomar from Meerut was brought to the
hospital in a serious condition on December 8, 2013, which as per the ECHS
scheme is permitted. The family was asked by the hospital authorities to
deposit the money for the treatment or transfer the patient to some other
hospital. Since the condition of the patient was serious, the family raised a
loan and deposited Rs.11 lakh for 20 days of hospitalisation and
treatment.
When the family was in no position
to arrange further funds, Tomar’s son, Raj Kumar Tomar, approached the Indian
Ex-Servicemen’s Movement (IESM) and the case was taken up with the Managing
Director of the ECHS, who promised to get cashless treatment. But he did not
succeed. The family deposited another Rs.2 lakh in the hospital. On January 1,
Subedar Prakash died. The hospital did not accede to the request of the ECHS to
release the body and insisted that the family clear the hospital bills.
In November 2008, the government had
announced that in future there would be a separate pay commission for the
defence forces. The defence fraternity feels betrayed as the government has not
constituted a separate pay commission, and, as in the case of the previous
commissions, there is no representation for defence forces in the newly
constituted Seventh Pay Commission. Some 39 anomalies in defence pensions are
yet to be resolved and with no defence representation in the new pay
commission, more anomalies are likely to appear thereby increasing the
magnitude of injustice already done to defence pensioners.
Denial of
voting rights
It is surprising that serving
defence personnel are denied the right to get themselves registered as voters
at the place of posting. In spite of a clear judgment by the Supreme Court in
1971, this basic right has not been extended to soldiers. The option of postal
ballot and proxy voting available to serving soldiers has not proved effective.
There is no restriction imposed in the Representation of the People Act, 1950,
to deny this right to defence personnel. There is an urgent need to restore
this right immediately to allow serving soldiers to vote at their place of
posting in the coming Lok Sabha elections.
The prevailing security environment
calls for strong measures to upgrade the country’s defence preparedness in
terms of manpower, equipment and weapon systems. Equally important are measures
to keep the soldier’s morale high.
Major General Satbir Singh is
chairman of the Indian Ex-Servicemen Movement and a former Senior Fellow and
Security Analyst of the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis. He can be
reached at satbirsm@gmail.com
