New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has dismissed a consolidated batch of nearly 300 writ petitions filed by the Ministry of Defence (MoD), challenging disability pension awards granted to retired armed forces personnel by the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT).
In a detailed judgment delivered Tuesday, a division bench of Justices Navin Chawla and Shalinder Kaur upheld the AFT’s rulings, finding no legal basis to interfere with its decisions in favour of veterans suffering from service-related medical conditions.
The court reaffirmed that, as per the rules interpreted by the Supreme Court, soldiers are not required to prove their disability claims. Instead, they are entitled to the benefit of the doubt unless the medical board provides clear and convincing evidence that the disability predated their entry to the service and is unrelated to their military duties.
The judgment also observed that disability benefits are not a matter of state generosity, but a rightful recognition of the hardships endured during military service and a reflection of the government’s responsibility toward those who have served the nation.
The defence ministry had contended that the ailments in question, including diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and psychiatric disorders, were “neither attributable to, nor aggravated by” military service.
This classification, commonly referred to as NANA, is used by military medical boards when they determine that a disease has no link to service conditions. Under existing rules, only those disabilities found to be attributable to or aggravated by military service are eligible for pension benefits and a NANA finding typically results in denial of such entitlements.
In many of these cases, the affected veterans had completed their terms of service but developed medical conditions during their tenure, often while posted in non-combat zones or peace stations.
While Release Medical Boards (RMBs) acknowledged the disabilities and assessed them at pensionable levels, they still recorded them as unrelated to military service. These assessments were later overturned by the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT), which held that the service environment had either contributed to or worsened the conditions and directed the MoD to release the disability pension.
The MoD challenged those tribunal orders before the high court. The bench, however, ruled that the AFT had correctly applied settled legal principles and that there was no justification to disturb its findings. The court further reiterated that the burden of proving non-attributability lies with the state, not the soldier.
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Why govt said these veterans don’t qualify for disability entitlement
Appearing for the Union of India, Attorney General R Venkataramani argued that the affected individuals were not invalided out of service, and therefore were ineligible for disability pensions. He relied on the Entitlement Rules, 2008, which replaced the 1982 rules, stating that a two-fold test must be satisfied: the disease must arise during service and be linked to conditions of military duty.
He further submitted that the “presumption” that once favoured the soldier, whereby any disease not recorded at the time of enlistment was deemed service-related, no longer applied after 2008. “The rule of presumption is no longer part of the Entitlement Rules, 2008,” he said, contending that tribunals had erroneously relied on precedents rooted in the older framework.
The MoD also maintained that conditions like diabetes and hypertension were “common lifestyle diseases”, and that judicial bodies should refrain from interfering with the findings of expert medical boards unless supported by strong medical evidence.
The Attorney General emphasised that in these cases, the medical boards had concluded the ailments were “neither attributable to, nor aggravated by” military service or ‘NANA’.
‘Soldiers cannot be asked to prove their disability claims’
The HC rejected the ministry’s arguments, holding that the AFT had applied well-settled legal principles and appropriately evaluated the evidence. It ruled that once a disease emerges during military service, the benefit of doubt must be extended to the individual, unless the government can provide a clear medical explanation proving the condition existed beforehand or was unrelated to service life.
“Soldiers cannot be asked to prove their disability claims,” the bench said. “A benefit of doubt is extended to them unless it is shown by cogent reasons by the Medical Board that the disability existed before entering service and had no connection with military service.”
In many of the challenged cases, the court found that Release Medical Boards (RMBs) had assessed the disabilities at pensionable levels but had still marked them as NANA. These conclusions were often based solely on the fact that the soldier was serving at a peace station, rather than on any reasoned medical rationale.
The judgment also rejected the assumption that non-combat postings are devoid of stress, noting that military life in any setting brings inherent psychological and physical strain.
“Even in peace stations, military service is inherently stressful due to a combination of factors such as strict discipline, long working hours, limited personal freedom and constant readiness for deployment,” the ruling said.
“The psychological burden of being away from family, living in isolated or challenging environments, and coping with the uncertainty of sudden transfers or duties adds to this strain.”
The bench held that when such realities are ignored by RMBs, their findings cannot serve as the basis to deny benefits. It also underscored that disability pension is not discretionary.
“The grant of disability benefits is not an act of generosity,” it observed, “but a rightful and just acknowledgement of the sacrifices in the form of disabilities/disorders suffered during the course of their military service and a measure that upholds the State’s responsibility towards its soldiers, who have served the nation with courage and devotion.”
A pattern of repetitive litigation
The court’s decision comes amid increasing judicial criticism of what has been described as repetitive and avoidable litigation by the Ministry of Defence.
According to sources familiar with the matter, in recent months, High Courts and even the apex court have dismissed hundreds of disability-related petitions filed by the MoD, often with strong observations and, in some cases, penalties or fines.
For instance, in November 2024, the Delhi High Court fined the MoD and the Navy Rs 50,000 for appealing a disability pension order based on settled Supreme Court precedent. The same bench explicitly warned that repeated challenges to Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) rulings on similar grounds could attract further costs.
In another case in May 2025, the Punjab and Haryana High Court had said it “deplored the approach adopted by the Union towards their own ex-Army personnel” for burdening the judiciary with unnecessary litigation.
In the same matter, the court condemned the defence ministry’s “insensitive and non-compliant attitude” towards disabled soldiers and noted that despite clear rulings from the Supreme Court, the MoD continued to pursue extensive litigation, including thousands of such appeals nationwide.
The sources added that the defence ministry had stopped filing such appeals after 2017, following internal advisories and repeated criticism by the judiciary. However, it began re-filing challenges on a large scale after the AFT took disciplinary action in 2023 against certain officers for failing to implement its orders.
Instead of complying with the tribunal’s directions, sources added, legal advisors within the ministry had reportedly encouraged a renewed litigation strategy, challenging nearly all AFT rulings before High Courts and the apex court.
In 2015, then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar had publicly urged officials not to treat litigation against soldiers as a “prestige issue.”
Two years later, in 2017, the Supreme Court also made strong remarks against the MoD for filing repetitive appeals in matters where the legal position was already well-settled.
In 2022, the apex court recorded its “displeasure” over the continued litigation strategy in disability pension cases, a sentiment it reiterated in 2024 and again in 2025.
The Delhi HC also cited Article 14 of the Constitution in its judgement, which guarantees equality before law. It noted that inconsistent assessments between different categories of postings, such as field versus peace, without clear justification, could lead to arbitrary treatment of similar disability claims.
The bench clarified that its scope of review under Article 226 (governing writ petitions) is limited, and that it would not interfere with AFT orders unless they were found to be legally flawed or factually unreasonable, which, it said, they were not.
With its ruling, the Delhi HC has now added its voice to a growing line of judicial rulings calling for a fair and reasoned approach to disability pension assessment and a more restrained use of litigation when tribunal orders are based on established law.
The HC dismissed all the writ petitions and upheld the AFT decisions, clearing the way for affected veterans to receive their disability pensions. The ministry retains the option of appealing the verdict before the apex court.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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