UNION OF INDIA & ORS. versus MANJEET SINGH

Citation: [2015] 6 S.C.R. 192 · Decided: 12-05-2015 · Supreme Court of India · Bench: M.Y. EQBAL · Disposal: Dismissed

Judgment (excerpt)

A 
B 
(2015] 6 S.C.R. 192 
UNION OF INDIA & ORS. 
v. 
MANJEET SINGH 
(Civil Appeal Nos. 4357-4358 of 2015) 
MAY 12, 2015 
[M.Y. EQBALANDAMITAVAROY, JJ.] 
Pension Regulations for the Army, 1961: Regulation 
C 173; Army Rules, 1954: rr. 5, 9 and 14 - Disability pension -
Entitlement for- Held: There is a statutory presumption, that 
the disease/disability for which a member of Army service is 
boarded out, had been contracted by him during his tenure, 
unless the same is displaced by cogent and persuasive 
D reasons recorded by the Medical Board- Burden to disprove 
the correlation of disability with the Army service has been 
cast on the authorities- In the instant case, the Medical Board 
computed the composite disability of the respondent to be 
E 20% - No reason was cited by Board in support of this 
conclusion - On the contrary, its deduction that the disabilities 
were unrelated to the Army service, was founded only on the 
fact that those were constitutional in nature and no other 
reason whatsoever - There was no reason assigned in the 
F proceedings of the Medical Board, as to why his disabilities 
eventually adjudged to be constitutional or genetic in nature, 
had escaped the notice of the authorities concerned at the 
time of his acceptance for Army service - Comprehensive 
G consideration of the Regulation, Rules and the General 
Principles as applicable, the service profile of the respondent 
and the proceedings of the Medical Board showed that the 
respondent had been wrongly denied the benefit of disability 
pension. 
H 
192 
UNION OF INDIA & ORS. v. MANJEET SINGH 
193 
Dismissing the appeals, the Court 
A 
HELD: 1. 
It is undisputed, that soon after the 
respondent had joined the service on 6.4.1999 having 
been adjudged to be fully fit therefor, following a rigorous 
medical test, he fell ill and had to be hospitalized where B 
he was diagnosed in due course, to be afflicted by (1) 
"Generalised Tonic Clonic Seizure" and (2) "Neurotic 
Depression". The respondent was hospitalized on more 
than one occasion during his short tenure ranging from 
8.4.1999to1.1.2002 when he was invalided from service. C 
He had actively served in all, for a period of about one 
year. He was thus mostly under treatment, for the above 
two disabilities during his stint with the appellants. [Para 
15] [204-E-G] 
Secretary, Ministry of Defence & Others vs. A. II. Damodaran 
(Dead) through LRs. & Others 2009 (13) SCR 416: (2009) 9 
sec 140 - referred to. 
D 
2. A conjoint reading of Regulation 173, Rule 5, 9 E 
and 14 of the Rules as well as paras 7, 8 and 9 of the 
"General Principles" brings to the fore, a statutory 
presumption, that a member of the service governed 
thereby, is presumed to have been in sound medical 
condition at the entry, except as to the physical disability F 
as recorded at that point of time and that if he is 
subsequently discharged from service on the ground 
of disability, any deterioration in his health has to be 
construed to be attachable to his service. The exception 
to this deduction is, only in the event of a medical G 
opinion, supported by reasons to the effect that the 
disease could not have been detected on medical 
examination prior to acceptance for service, whereupon 
it would be deemed that the disease had not arisen 
during service. The incident of invaliding a member of H 
194 
SUPREME COURT REPORTS 
[2015] 6 S.C.R. 
A the Army service, entails curtailment of the normal tenure, 
for his recorded disability to the extent of 20% or more 
and thus the disentitling requisites would have to be 
stringently construed. The burden to disprove the 
correlation of the disability with the Army service has 
B been cast on the authorities by the Regulation, Rules 
and the General Principles and thus, any inchoate, 
casual, perfunctory or vague approach of the authorities 
would tantamount to non-conformance of the letter and 
spirit thereof, consequently invalidating the decision of 
C denial. The bearing of the Army service as an 
aggravating factor qua even a dormant and elusive 
constitutional or genetic disability in all fact situations, 
thus cannot be readily ruled out. Hence the predominant 
D significance of the requirement of the reasons to be 
recorded 
by 
the 
Medical 
Board 
and 
the 
recommendations based thereon for boarding out a 
member from service. As a corollary, in absence of 
reasons to reinforce the opinion, that the disability is not 
E attributable to the Army service o

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