The Punjab and Haryana High Court has upheld an order granting special family pension to the mother of an Army personnel who died of cancer, observing that prolonged stress and strain during military service could have contributed to the disease.
A division bench of Justices Harsimran Singh Sethi and Vikas Suri dismissed the Centre’s petition challenging a 2019 ruling of the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT), Chandigarh, which had directed that Kumari Salochna Verma be granted special family pension from the date of her son’s death.
Verma’s son, who was recruited into the Army on December 12, 2003, was found medically fit at the time of enrolment. He later developed retroperitoneal sarcoma with widespread metastasis and died on June 24, 2009. While the medical board had concluded that the disease was “neither attributable to nor aggravated by military service,” the High Court disagreed with that assessment.
The bench held that cancer, except in cases directly linked to smoking, is generally considered attributable to military service under the governing rules. Citing the Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling in Dharamvir Singh v. Union of India, the judges noted that if a soldier is declared fit at the time of enrolment but later develops a disease, it can be presumed to be service-related.
“The disease from which Verma’s son was suffering did not surface instantaneously one day; rather, it is a multi-stage process wherein normal cells transform into malignant tumour cells, often triggered by prolonged stress,” the court observed.
The judges highlighted that during his six years of service, the soldier encountered various postings that exposed him to significant stress and strain. In the absence of cogent evidence disproving the link between the illness and military service, the disease must be deemed attributable to service, the court held.
Dismissing the Centre’s plea, the bench directed that Verma be paid the special family pension as ordered by the AFT.
