The Principal Bench of the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) on Monday sought the personal appearance of the Defence Secretary and Chief of Army Staff in a case of contempt where the disability pension of a jawan has not been paid in spite of repeated orders by the Tribunal.
The AFT’s bench has directed that the defence secretary and the Army chief appear before it on October 21 to explain the non-implementation of the Tribunal’s orders.
The directions come in the wake of a recent judgement by a larger bench of the Tribunal which had ruled that the AFT possesses the powers of contempt to get its orders implemented in case there is wilful non-compliance by the respondents.
The judgment, in the case of Lt Col Mukul Dev vs Union of India, gave much-needed teeth to the AFT to get its orders, which in many instances were being ignored by the Ministry of Defence (MoD), implemented. The Delhi High Court, while taking up an appeal against the judgement, did not grant any stay on its operation and the matter is pending before it.
Several veterans and ex-servicemen’s associations have also taken up the issue of non-implementation of AFT judgements, especially those concerning disability pension or grant of benefits to widows, and have written to the defence minister to redress the issue.
In the past, the Punjab and Haryana Court has come down heavily upon the MoD for non-implementation of the AFT’s orders. The Supreme Court and various high courts have also passed strong observations against the MoD for filing appeals against disabled personnel and other pensioners in settled matters.
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