Brigadier SS Ahluwallia lost his toes to frostbite in the 1971 India-Pakistan war.
Brigadier SS Ahluwallia, a Vir Chakra awardee, lost his toes to frostbite in the course of a heroic effort to capture the country's highest picket near the Siachen glacier in the 1971 India-Pakistan war. He opted for voluntary retirement at the turn of the century and returned home, only to be thrust into a different kind of battle. A legal one.
The retired army officer was refused war injury pension on the grounds that he left the force four months before his actual date of retirement. Although courts had already ruled that disability benefits cannot be refused to voluntary retirees, he was deemed ineligible by the military and government authorities.
The legal battle that followed lasted years. After the army headquarters and defence ministry repeatedly rejected his appeals, Brigadier Ahluwallia filed a case before the armed forces tribunal in 2010. The court ruled in the officer's favour, directing the government to release his war injury pension.
The defence ministry appealed against the directive before the Supreme Court, only to lose again. The court dismissed the appeal and directed the government to release Brigadier Ahluwallia's war injury pension, providing him with relief 18 long years after his retirement.
"I feel very bitter because even after the loss I faced due to frostbite and amputation, I continued to perform exceedingly well in all the operations I undertook. I even received the Vishisht Seva Medal while carrying out an operation against insurgents. After I came out of the service, I was disheartened to discover that they were denying me the disability pension on the basis of some flimsy outdated rule," he said.
Brigadier Ahluwallia is not the only army veteran who had to fight for his due before a judge. Around 1,000 appeals made by the defence ministry have been rejected by various courts since 2014.
Kulwinder, wife of Brigadier Ahluwallia, says it is unfair to deny veteran officers their due.
An expert panel formed by the defence ministry in 2015 claimed that such petitions filed by the government have "soared to unprecedented levels" in the last few years. "Besides causing heartburn among employees, former employees and their families, the heavy influx of litigation has clogged the government's resources -- leading to a shift in focus from core areas of responsibility to handling of proceedings in various courts and tribunals across the country," its report said.
However, neither the government's abysmal success rate in court nor the panel report has made it reconsider waging legal battles against veteran army officers. "At present, there is no proposal to withdraw pending appeals in the Supreme Court," Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman wrote to Rajya Sabha member Rajeev Chandrashekhar on December 31 last year.
Kulwinder, wife of Brigadier Ahluwallia, claimed that denying veteran officers their due amounted to disrespecting them. "When such a thing happens, you feel totally devastated. Is this why my husband sacrificed his youth and risked his life for the country? He was just an unmarried man of 26 when he became disabled. The people in authority should treat him with honour and dignity, not like this," she said.
The condition of other armymen may be far worse, another officer maintained. "If this is how an officer of Brigadier Ahluwallia's stature is treated by the government, I wonder what would be the fate of soldiers living in far-flung areas who don't have the resources or influence to fight for their cause in court," he said.