Order Of Discharge & Denial Of Disability Pension Based On Medical Opinion Without Reasons Not Valid: Supreme Court
The Supreme Court allowed a Civil Appeal preferred against the Judgment of the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT), Regional Bench by which the claim for grant of disabilities pension was denied.
Justice Abhay S. Oka, Justice N. Kotiswar Singh, Supreme Court
The Supreme Court held that an Order of discharge and denial of disability pension based on a medical opinion without providing full reasons is not valid.
The Court held thus in a Civil Appeal preferred against the Judgment of the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT), Regional Bench by which the claim for grant of disabilities pension was denied.
The two-Judge Bench comprising Justice Abhay S. Oka and Justice N. Kotiswar Singh observed, “It may also be noted that in A.V. Damodaran (supra) where this Court had dealt with the discharge due to Schizophrenia, the Medical Board had given detailed reasons for their opinion as mentioned in Para 4 of the aforesaid decision, which is not the case in other cited cases and also in the present case. The issue of giving reasons for the opinion of the Medical Board has not been discussed in these cited cases. … order of discharge of the appellant and denial of disability pension to him based on a medical opinion without providing full reasons to support the opinion cannot be said to be valid.”
The Bench said that if the decision of the authority to discharge a serviceman is based on a medical report which is devoid of reasons, which are required to be given as also mandated by rules, an act of the authority specially when it denies any post discharge benefit will be rendered invalid in the eyes of law.
Senior Advocate Thomas P. Joseph represented the Appellant while ASG Vikramjit Banerjee represented the Respondents.
Factual Background
The Appellant was enrolled in the Indian Army in 1988 as a sepoy and after serving more than 9 (nine) years, he was discharged from service on being diagnosed with Schizophrenia. His discharge on medical invalidation was based on the opinion of the Invalidating Medical Board held on 30 March, 1998 at the Command Hospital, Western Command, Chandimandir which found that the onset of the invalidating disease was in August 1993 during which period the Appellant had served in a peace station and that the disability was neither attributable to nor aggravated by military service and the said disease of the Appellant was Constitutional in nature and not connected with the service. The disability was assessed at 30% for two years. Accordingly, the Appellant’s claim for disability pension was rejected by the CCDA (Pension), Allahabad vide letter, which was communicated to the Appellant by the AMC Records.
The said rejection was challenged before the first appellate committee which was dismissed. The Appellant, thereafter, made an unsuccessful attempt for redressal of his grievances through a Member of the Parliament (MP). The Appellant was informed by the Ministry of Defence vide communication that the matter had already been considered and his Appeal against rejection of disability pension claim was turned down earlier by the competent authority. He was also informed that he had not preferred the second Appeal after his first Appeal was dismissed. Being aggrieved by the rejection of his claim for disability pension, the Appellant unsuccessfully approached the AFT which was heard with other Applicants seeking similar reliefs.
Reasoning
The Supreme Court in the above context of the case, noted, “… if the serviceman is discharged from service or denied the disability pension on the basis of a medical opinion which is devoid of reasons, it would strike at the root of the action taken by the authority and such action cannot be sustained in law.”
The Court held that if any action is taken by the authority for the discharge of a serviceman and the serviceman is denied disability pension on the basis of a report of the Medical Board wherein no reasons have been disclosed for the opinion so given, such an action of the authority will be unsustainable in law.
“In our view, the finding given in Para 2(d) of Part II by the Medical Board is merely an opinion or conclusion without assigning any reasons as to how the Medical Board has come to the aforesaid conclusion that the disability of the appellant is a constitutional personality disorder. There is a difference between the “conclusion” or “opinion”, and “reasons” to support such a conclusion or opinion. The reasons have to be separately mentioned for the conclusion arrived at by the Medical Board”, it added.
The Court further observed that the bare conclusion arrived by the Medical Board cannot treated as the reasons for discharge of the serviceman and denial of invalid pension within the meaning of the Regulations.
“We must appreciate the fact that the provisions for grant of disability pension are in the nature of a beneficial scheme intended to provide succour to servicemen in hard times who have been discharged from service after having served the nation with dedication. Accordingly, a liberal approach must be adopted while construing such beneficial provisions”, it said.
The Court was of the view that since it is the statutory requirement that the opinion of the Medical Board is to be the basis of the discharge, if the opinion of Medical Board is devoid of reasons, the act of the authority based on mere opinion sans reasons can certainly be questioned.
“According to us, if the decision of the authority to discharge a serviceman is based on a medical report which is devoid of reasons, which are required to be given as also mandated by rules as discussed above, such an act of the authority specially when it denies any post discharge benefit will be rendered invalid in the eyes of law”, it added.
The Court noted that the authorities have failed to discharge the burden of establishing that the employee deserved to be discharged from service on account of such illness without any benefit of pension and such action has to be considered arbitrary and liable to be interfered with.
Accordingly, the Apex Court allowed the Appeal and set aside the impugned Order.
Cause Title- Rajumon T.M. v. Union of India & Ors. (Neutral Citation: 2025 INSC 644)
Appearance:
Appellant: Senior Advocate Thomas P. Joseph, AOR Tom Joseph, and Advocate Duvvada Ramesh.
Respondents: ASG Vikramjit Banerjee, AOR Mukesh Kumar Maroria, Advocates Shashank Bajpai, Shyam Gopal, Rekha Pandey, Chinmayee Chandra, Rajan Kumar Chourasia, Kartik Dey, and Akshat Kaushik.
