The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed 271 appeals filed by the Union of India challenging the grant of disability pension to ex-servicemen by the Armed Forces Tribunal and various High Courts. The appeals arose from cases where Release Medical Boards had opined that the disability was 'neither attributable nor aggravated' (NANA) by military service, leading to the denial of pension initially, which was later overturned by tribunals and courts in favour of the ex-servicemen.
The Court, comprising Justice Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha and Justice Alok Aradhe, examined the core legal issue concerning the applicability of the Entitlement Rules 2008 in disability pension claims. It noted that while the 2008 Rules removed the presumption of fitness at the time of entry into service — a feature present in the 1982 Entitlement Rules — this change did not alter the fundamental burden of proof in such cases.
The Union of India, represented by Attorney General R. Venkataramani, argued that the removal of the presumption of fitness under the 2008 Rules shifted the initial burden to the ex-serviceman to establish a causal connection between disability and service. It further contended that reliance on the 2013 judgment in Dharamvir Singh v. Union of India, which interpreted the 1982 Rules, was misplaced in cases governed by the 2008 framework.
The respondents, ex-servicemen, countered that although the 2008 Rules did away with the entry-stage presumption, the overall claimant-protective structure of the entitlement scheme remained intact. They asserted that the beneficial provisions concerning attributability, aggravation, and the application of reasonable doubt continued to favour the claimant, and that the employer retained the primary burden to rebut claims of service-attributable disability.
The Court accepted that the 2008 Entitlement Rules introduced two significant changes: the abolition of the presumption that a soldier entering service in sound health and leaving with a disability must have acquired it during service, and an express requirement to consider causal connection between disability and military service. However, it held that these modifications, by themselves, did not dismantle the protective framework designed for claimants.
In its judgment, the Court observed: '...mere addition of a causal requirement and a removal of the presumption that when a member joins service healthy, and, if, he leaves with a disability, it ought to be attributable to the military service, does not, by itself, change the core scheme of the Entitlement Rules 2008 because the other beneficial provisions broadly remain untouched.' It emphasized that the onus to prove that the member's disability is not attributable to service still lies on the employer.
The Court further clarified that the rules governing attributability and aggravation continue to operate such that if the cause of disability is unknown and the presumption of attributability is not rebutted, the disability is deemed attributable to service. This principle, it stated, ensures that the removal of the entry-stage presumption does not shift the entire burden of proof to the serviceman.
The bench concluded: '...even though Entitlement Rules 2008 removed the automatic presumption and strengthened the requirement of causal nexus, they did not dismantle the claimant-protective structure of the Rules, particularly the continued allocation of primary burden to the establishment and beneficial principles governing attributability, aggravation and reasonable doubt.'
Accordingly, the Supreme Court dismissed the Union's appeals, upholding the grant of disability pension to the ex-servicemen. The judgment reaffirms that despite procedural changes in the 2008 Rules, the substantive protection for service-attributable disability remains intact, with the employer bearing the responsibility to disprove such a link.