High Court backs pension for soldier’s mother, links cancer to stress during military service

In a significant ruling, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has upheld a decision granting special family pension to the mother of a deceased Army personnel, holding that prolonged stress and strain in military service could have contributed to his death from cancer.

The division bench, comprising Justices Harsimran Singh Sethi and Vikas Suri, dismissed a plea by the Centre challenging a 2019 verdict by the Armed Forces Tribunal (Chandigarh), which had directed that Kumari Salochna Verma be granted a special family pension following the death of her son, a serving soldier.

Court cites policy and precedent

Referring to existing government policy, the court noted that all forms of cancer — except those caused by smoking — are to be treated as attributable to military service.

It also cited the Supreme Court’s 2013 judgment in Dharamvir Singh vs Union of India, which held that if a soldier is declared medically fit at the time of enrolment but later contracts a disease, it is presumed to be attributable to or aggravated by military service, unless proved otherwise.

The court observed that Verma’s son was found medically fit when he joined the Army on 12 December 2003. He served for over six years before succumbing to retroperitoneal sarcoma with widespread metastasis on 24 June 2009.

The Centre had argued that the Armed Forces Medical Board had categorised the illness as 'neither attributable to nor aggravated by military service' and contended that retroperitoneal sarcoma is a rare and aggressive form of cancer with no clear link to service conditions.

Stress cited as contributing factor

Rejecting the Centre’s plea, the court held that the illness could not have developed overnight, and must have been a gradual transformation of normal cells into malignant ones. This, it said, could result from “constant stress suffered by the patient concerned for a prolonged time”.

“For a period of six years, the son of the respondent no. 1 (Verma) was serving in the Army, and keeping in view the various postings and the stress he encountered during such postings, it can be safely said that the stress and strain for a prolonged time resulted into cancer,” the bench noted.

The court further emphasised that the government had failed to produce any credible medical records or other material to establish that the disease had no connection with military service.

In absence of contrary evidence, the court ruled that the cancer must be presumed to have been caused or aggravated by military duties.

“That being so, the said disease has to be attributed to the military service,” it stated in its final order.

With this ruling, the court has reaffirmed the principle that the burden lies on the employer — in this case, the government — to prove when a disease is not linked to the conditions of service, particularly in cases where personnel are declared fit upon enrolment.

The judgment is being seen as a significant victory for armed forces families seeking justice in cases where medical conditions are linked to the rigours of military life.

With inputs from PTI