Model Employer or Repetitive Litigant? Lessons from Sgt. Girish Kumar’s Case on Broad banding of Disability pension and Its Relevance and Applicability to the Unsettled Issue of Disabled Officer Cadet
- Atul Singh
- Feb 14
- 5 min read
(Disability Pension | Broad Banding for Officer Cadets | Puneet Gupta Judgment in Rem | Shreya Manhas Appeal | Supreme Court 2026 | Ex Gratia vs Pension | Armed Forces Disability Law)
-by Atul Singh, Advocate
The Hon’ble Supreme Court’s judgment dated 12th February 2026 in Civil Appeal No. 21811 of 2018, rendered in Union of India v. Sgt. Girish Kumar, is not merely another judgment on disability pension. It is a constitutional reminder and a testament to the Government’s continued insensitivity and reluctance to recognise the lawful entitlements and disability pension rights of personnel of the Armed Forces.
Through the judgment rendered in an appeal filed by the Union of India, titled Union of India Through Its Secretary & Ors. Versus Sgt. Girish Kumar & Ors., the Hon’ble Apex Court reaffirmed that disability benefits flowing from service conditions are not acts of benevolence, not discretionary payments, and certainly not subject to restrictive administrative interpretation or creativity. It further reaffirmed that once disability is attributable to or aggravated by service, the entitlement to disability pension follows as a matter of right, and not as charity.
Evidently, at the public exchequer's expense, the Union continues to file one appeal after another, even where the legal position is judicially settled. This reluctance and insensitive approach, contrary to settled principles governing Armed Forces disability pension and broad banding policy, compels similarly situated individuals into repetitive litigation.
The said judgment of February 2026 directly addresses this phenomenon of repetitive litigation by the State. The Hon’ble Supreme Court observed that once entitlement stands judicially clarified, the Government should not compel each individual to litigate separately. By doing so, the conduct of the Union is inconsistent with its role as a “model employer.” Through the said judgment, the Court rejected attempts to narrow disability pension benefits through self-serving interpretations and procedural devices designed to deny entitlement to disabled soldiers. The judgment also re-emphasized the uniform application of settled law as held in Union of India v. Ram Avtar, being a judgment in rem, which would invariably apply to all similarly placed individuals, and the disabled veterans are entitled to disability pension including the benefit of broad banding, due to them, with effect from 01.01.1996 or 01.01.2006, as the case may be, along with interest @ 6% per annum and not from three years preceding the filing of the Original Application before the Armed Forces Tribunal.
This reasoning of judgment ‘in rem’ assumes deeper constitutional and legal significance when examined in the context of medically boarded-out Officer Cadets.
With self-serving interpretation and undue emphasis upon nomenclature, the Union of India has consistently attempted to position Officer Cadets outside the mainstream disability pension framework, thereby denying them the benefit of broad banding and full disability pension.
The pivotal judicial intervention in this regard came in Puneet Gupta v. Union of India, wherein the Hon’ble Delhi High Court examined the arbitrary 1996 policy governing disabled Officer Cadets, the Office Memorandum dated 31.01.2001 introducing broad banding, and the overall architecture and intent of disability pension jurisprudence applicable to the Armed Forces.
The Hon’ble Delhi High Court in Puneet Gupta held that once the injury is found to be attributable to or aggravated by service conditions, the benefit of broad banding cannot be diluted merely because the benefit is described differently. This reasoning echoes that Substance shall always prevail over nomenclature. If disability is attributable to military service, the protective framework of disability pension cannot be artificially denied.
It is important to note that this was a judgment rendered in writ proceedings. The decision thus operated in rem. The subsequent Review Petition filed by the Union was also dismissed. The judgment thus attained finality, and no contrary pronouncement displaced it. In legal effect, the interpretation stood settled.
Thus, the benefit of broad banding was granted to the disabled Officer Cadet therein. This would invariably mean that the Union accepted the judgment rendered in rem and ought to have granted the benefit of broad banding to all similarly placed disabled Officer Cadets, as the doctrine of precedent, when rendered by a writ court, does not permit selective obedience.
Yet, the administrative response has been the opposite of uniform implementation.
In matter after matter, including that of Shreya Manhas v. Union of India, the same issue, already settled by the same Court, resurfaced again. The Hon’ble Delhi High Court once again reaffirmed that the benefit of broad banding would also apply to disabled Officer Cadets. What the Government chose not to challenge in Puneet Gupta’s case has now been challenged before the Hon’ble Supreme Court in an appeal filed against the judgment rendered in Shreya Manhas, contending that the benefit granted to Officer Cadet Puneet Gupta was a special dispensation and not for universal application. The said appeal remains pending adjudication before the Hon’ble Supreme Court.
Instead of acknowledging that Puneet Gupta settled the principle governing disability pension and broad banding for Officer Cadets, the Union has chosen to litigate the issue of broad banding in each case.
This issue must be examined seriously in light of the recent judgment rendered by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Sgt. Girish Kumar. The argument of “special dispensation” ought to be rejected at the threshold, especially when the law was settled in writ jurisdiction and allowed to attain finality.
Each disabled Officer Cadet should not be compelled to approach the High Court for enforcement of broad banding and disability pension, thereby giving the Union of India repeated opportunities to re-agitate an issue already settled by a judgment operating in rem.
Such conduct, most certainly, as held by the Hon’ble Supreme Court, is inconsistent with the role of a model employer.
If the principle laid down in Sgt. Girish Kumar is applied with fairness and constitutional fidelity, the continuing resistance in matters concerning disabled Officer Cadets becomes increasingly indefensible.
There is also a dimension of institutional insensitivity that deserves acknowledgment. An Officer Cadet invalided out due to disability attributable to or aggravated by service conditions does not merely lose employment. He or she loses the opportunity to serve in uniform and derive identity from that service.
To then confront such disabled Officer Cadets with technical arguments about classification, restrictive interpretation of broad banding policies, or artificial distinctions between pension and ex gratia compensation compounds the injury. It creates an impression that rigid categorisation is preferred over equitable recognition of service-attributable disability.
Such an impression becomes even more troubling when the issue of “ex gratia” labelling or exclusion from Ex-Servicemen categorisation is considered.
It is not merely a monetary issue. It concerns recognition, honour, status, and constitutional dignity.
Paragraph 15 of the judgment rendered by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Union of India v. Sgt. Girish Kumar reads:
15. Pension, as authoritatively settled by this Court, is neither a bounty nor an ex gratia payment dependent upon the grace of the State. It is a deferred portion of compensation for past service and, upon fulfilment of the governing conditions, matures into a vested and enforceable right. Pensionary entitlements, therefore, partake the character of property, and cannot be withheld, reduced, or extinguished except by authority of law. This principle applies with full vigour to disability pension, which is grounded not merely in length of service, but in the impairment suffered by a member of the Armed Forces in the course of, or attributable to, the service rendered to the nation. The disability pension is not a matter of largesse, but a recognition of sacrifice made in service of the nation.
Labelling disability benefits granted to disabled Officer Cadets as “ex gratia” is therefore nothing but an attempt to convert a legal entitlement flowing from service conditions into a mere charity.
The sheer reluctance to correct this historic anomaly, perpetuated for nearly three decades, distances the Union further from the constitutional expectation of being a model employer.
The law stands settled. The principle stands clarified. The judgments operate in rem. What remains unsettled is the willingness to implement them uniformly.
Also Read: https://www.fromthedeskofasm.com/post/broad-banding-for-cadets-law-settled-government-in-denial
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