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@article{175059,
        author = {MAJ Kavish Aggarwala},
        title = {Disability Pension & Human Rights of the Armed Forces},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2025},
        volume = {11},
        number = {11},
        pages = {1591-1599},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=175059},
        abstract = {The serving/retired officials of the Indian Army, Navy, and Air Force are aggrieved with the Guidelines to Medical Officers 20232 (hereinafter referred as “GMO 2023”) and Entitlement Rules for Casualty Pension and Disability Compensation Awards to Armed Forces Personnel, 2023 (hereinafter referred as “ER 2023”) issued by the Department of Ex-Servicemen Welfare (DESW) of the Ministry of Defence with an aim to curtail the claim of disability pension from thousands of serving and recently retired personnel in the defense forces of the Union of India.
Armed Forces officers suffer injuries during military service and due to such service they often incur disabilities. Such injuries/disabilities are certified by the medical authorities of the Indian Army/ Navy/ Air Force as being “attributable to military service” or “aggravated by military service”. Due to such injuries/disabilities, the officers are not considered eligible for promotions and /or favourable postings, since they are being regarded as “Low Medical Category” (hereinafter referred as “LMC”) personnel. Therefore, the officers lost out on promotional avenues and advancement in their career, due to policies pertaining to medical categories, as issued by the government from time to time.
Until 20 September 2023, i.e. immediately prior to the coming into force of the GMO / ER 2023, Armed Forces personnel were being governed by the provisions of GMO / ER 2008, which was beneficial legislation governing the grant of disability pension to disabled personnel of the Indian Armed Forces. Suddenly, on 21 September 2023, the government issued and implemented the GMO / ER 2023, which has a retrospective effect of taking away the entitlement for disability pension from the officers of the Armed Forces who had suffered disabilities several years ago.},
        keywords = {Guidelines to Medical Officers 2023 (GMO), Entitlement Rules for Casualty Pension and Disability Compensation Awards to Armed Forces Personnel, 2023 (ER), Armed Forces, Human Rights, Constitution of India, 1950.},
        month = {April},
        }