Overview

• On July 1, a bench of Justices Shalinder Kaur and Navin Chawla dismissed roughly 300 appeals by the Ministry of Defence challenging awards of disability pensions to armed forces personnel.
• The judgment confirmed that veterans need not prove service connection for disabilities and are entitled to the benefit of doubt unless a medical board shows a pre-existing condition.
• The court framed disability pensions as rightful acknowledgements of soldiers’ sacrifices rather than acts of generosity by the state.
• It ordered all medical boards to provide clear, cogent reasons in their reports to ensure transparent and precise adjudication of disability claims.
• The decision follows repeated Supreme Court and Armed Forces Tribunal admonitions and fines against the Defence Ministry for excessive litigation over settled pension cases since 2017.