The Supreme Court (SC) criticized the Indian government and the Ministry of Defence because they challenged the cases of disabled veterans in all judicial levels, including tribunals, High Courts, and the Supreme Court itself. The Court referred to the 2015 Ministry of Defence report, which acknowledged that many disabled service members in India are still being denied benefits due to overly technical grounds.
Judges P. S. Narasimha and Alok Arathe noted that the Ministry of Defence report had recommended immediately withdrawing appeals concerning disability benefits and pensions pending for differently-abled service members, but this recommendation was not fully implemented. The Court stated that such appeals were being filed and continued to be filed even after the Ministry of Defence agreed with the committee's recommendation to withdraw these types of litigation, resulting in the cancellation of over 270 appeals filed by the government.
The bench also examined the outcomes of similar cases in various judicial bodies. The Supreme Court emphasized that the sad aspect of these proceedings is that out of approximately 271 civil appeals and special relief petitions, most were dismissed due to the expiry of the statute of limitations. It was observed that many similar appeals dismissed due to missing deadlines had already been rejected previously, and the current group represents only a small number of surviving cases.
According to information obtained under the Right to Information (RTI Act), out of 2997 appeals before the first appellate authority, 2855 were rejected, and only 142 were accepted. Before the second appellate authority, out of 456 appeals, 439 were rejected, and only 17 were accepted.
The Court reviewed the Entitlement Rules 2008, adopted in 2010 to replace the 1982 rules, and found no errors in them. The 1982 Rules clearly established a presumption: if a service member was physically and mentally healthy at the time of joining, any disability at the time of discharge should be considered a consequence of military service. However, the 2008 Rules abolished this presumption by adding a requirement of causation. They state that 'the mere fact of developing an illness during military service does not automatically establish a causal link or aggravation due to military service.'
The bench upheld the new rules, stating that 'simply adding a requirement of causation and abolishing the presumption that if a service member joins service healthy and leaves disabled, it must be related to military service, does not change the fundamental scheme of the Entitlement Rules 2008, as other welfare provisions remain largely unchanged. The burden of proving that a service member's disability is unrelated to service still lies with the employer. The relevant rules regarding causation and aggravation continue to assert that if the cause of the disability is unknown, ... the disability is considered service-related.'