AFT upholds armyman’s sentence for cowardice in fratricide case

The Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) has upheld the sentence of dismissal and one-year rigorous imprisonment (RI) awarded to an Army junior commissioned officer (JCO) in an incident of fratricide.

The sentence had been awarded by a summary general court martial (GCM) to the JCO for alleged cowardice and failing to act appropriately in the incident in which a lieutenant colonel was shot.

The AFT, in its order this week, observed that the response of JCO Sub Jaibir Singh showed cowardice in the face of the enemy wherein he, all along, focused and concentrated merely on self-preservation and had not taken any action to neutralise the jawan who shot the officer.

There were at least 50 armed persons at the post within 100m of the site of the incident and he could have ordered these troops to take action against the jawan. By his inaction, he has displayed cowardice and these facts have been amply proved by the testimony of not only prosecution witnesses but also the defence witnesses, the AFT said.

The evidence on record clearly establishes that during the incident in which Lt Col Saket Saxena was shot, the JCO did not take any action to control the situation.

This was despite the fact that he was the second senior-most person on the post and was also the platoon commander of the jawan who had shot the lieutenant colonel, the tribunal observed.

On October 31, 2006, jawan Suresh Chandra Behera, while posted with Delta Company of 28 Rashtriya Rifles, shot and killed Lt Col Saket Saxena, the Officer Commanding of the Company, and continued firing intermittently thereafter.

A court of inquiry had held the JCO blameworthy for the lapses and he was tried under relevant Sections of the Army Act. His trial had concluded in April 2007 and his appeal against the order before the Chief of Army Staff was rejected in 2009. Then, he sought judicial redress against his trial, contending that the charges against him were false and that there were procedural lapses during his trial.

-via The Tribune, Chandigarh

Pension for navyman after 36 years wait

Vijay Mohan.

After running from pillar to post, a disabled Navy sailor who had suffered head injuries on a ship almost 40 years ago has been sanctioned disability pension with effect from 1975.

Holding that the sailor was entitled benefits for 20% disability for life, the Armed Forces Tribunal also ordered the pension authorities to pay the sailor interest on arrears since 1975 at the rate of 12% per annum.

Jai Bhagwan Sharma enrolled in the Navy in 1965 and served till 1973. He had also taken part in the 1971 Indo-Pak War. During service, he hurt his head when a high-pressure steam pipe burst in the engine room of his ship in 1972.

After a long hospital stay, Sharma was boarded out of service on medical grounds. He began experiencing frequent bouts of severe headaches, which led to neurological complications, and was diagnosed as a case of neurosis. His disability was assessed at 20% and attributed to military service.

Sharma was granted disability pension of Rs 59 per month from June 1973 to March 1975 and Rs 50 per month for life thereafter. He was hospitalised twice in 1974 and 1975 for cerebral seizures and was referred to the Dr Rajendra Prasad Centre for Ophthalmic Sciences and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences for clinical investigations and treatment.

In 1990, Sharma was examined at AIIMS and found handicapped to the extent of 75%. He was under treatment for life and his vision has also become very weak.

In June 2001, when Sharma visited the Pension Distribution Officer for yearly identification, he discovered that the disability pension has two elements — disability and service — and that payment of disability element of his pension had been discontinued since 1975 without any reason or intimation.

Sharma wrote to the authorities for holding a resurvey medical board and also sought payment of his pension’s disability element from 1975. When there was no response, he moved the Delhi High Court, which directed the authorities to consider his representation within three months. Even this order was not adhered to.

What followed next was a series of legal and bureaucratic wrangling and in 2005 he received a communiqué that he was granted disability element of his pension — Rs 310 per month – with effect from 2004 for life. He made several representations for increase in disability pension but without any result and finally approached the Tribunal.

Pension authorities have submitted before the Tribunal that Sharma’s revised pension payment order was issued on November 23, 2011. The Tribunal, while expressing its ire over the attitude of the authorities and the manner in which the case was handled, observed that the departments concerned had been making Sharma run from pillar to post and ordered that he be adequately compensated for this reckless delay.

Testing times

1972: Jai Bhagwan Sharma suffers a head injury after a high-pressure steam pipe bursts in the engine room of his ship

1973: Sharma boarded out of service on medical grounds, granted disability pension

June 2001: Sharma discovers that payment of disability element of his pension discontinued in 1975

November 23, 2011: After a protracted legal battle, Armed Forces Tribunal orders Sharma be paid pension from 1975 with 12% interest

-via The Tribune

13 years after soldier’s death, widow gets pension

Vijay Mohan.

In a landmark decision emphasising that callousness towards human life would not be tolerated, the Chandigarh Bench of the Armed Forces Tribunal yesterday ordered exemplary compensation of Rs 10 lakh along with special family pension to Navindra Devi, widow of a soldier who had died in 1998.

The Bench comprising Justice Ghanshyam Prashad and Lt Gen HS Panag also directed that arrears of pension be paid to the widow with effect from 1998, along with interest.

The petitioner’s husband, while posted near Bikaner, developed psychiatric problems for which he was given electric shocks in a civil hospital. Thereafter, he was sent on leave to recuperate.

A few days after returning from leave, the unwell soldier walked out of the unit and went missing. He was found wandering near the Delhi railway station by the Government Railway Police (GRP) who requested the Army authorities to take him back to his unit.

However, rather than sending a team to bring back the soldier, his unit in Bikaner and the military authorities in Delhi kept writing letters to each another in this regard.

While the correspondence continued, the GRP let him go when no one from the Army came to escort him. His body was found the next day from a well.

The Army unit then showed him on leave retrospectively from the date he had wandered out of his unit. No Court of Inquiry (CoI) was conducted as Bikaner and Delhi authorities kept on shifting the blame.

After three rounds of litigation in the Delhi High Court, the court finally ordered the authorities to convene a CoI that was held 11 years after the soldier’s death.

The CoI, however, declared the death as not related to service factors and opined that the unit had readied a team to bring back the soldier from the GRP, but the team could not be ultimately dispatched.

Holding the unit responsible for callousness leading to death, the tribunal observed that there was extreme negligence in handling the issue since no care was taken to keep the soldier under medical supervision and then to bring him back from the GRP. The tribunal also observed that a CoI was not held which was mandatory under rules and the inquiry was held 11 years after the death on judicial intervention.

The tribunal also held that it was wrong for the authorities to have shown the soldier on leave retrospectively to evade responsibility. It was held that in terms of the dictum of the Supreme Court in Charanjit Kaur vs. Union of India, the widow deserved to be granted special family pension and appropriate compensation.

-via The Tribune

Colonel accused of molestation approaches AFT for relief

A Colonel who is accused of molesting a woman in a hotel has approached the Armed Forces Tribunal against the Court of Inquiry (CoI) ordered against him by the Army.

Colonel Sandeep Singh is charged of “misdemeanour” against a woman in a hotel”s casino in Gangtok on December 1 while attending a higher command course there last year.

Denying the charges levelled against him, the officer has asked the Tribunal to quash the inquiry against him.

The final report of the CoI ordered by Army’s Sikkim-based 17 Mountain Division is still awaited.

Col Singh allegedly misbehaved with the woman in an inebriated state and was accompanied by two other similar-rank officers, who have been made witnesses in the case.

The Colonel had allegedly called up the hotel front desk and asked for a woman to be sent to his room.

-via MSN India