Q & A (10)

Readers may send in their Questions through email for a Q & A session with ‘Q&A’ as the subject. For rules, please read this post.

My sister who is in receipt of ordinary family pension is only getting Rs 1275 basic pension from the bank, is it the correct figure ? (Ex-JWO Harwant Singh)

No, not at all. The minimum pension in all central govt services has been raised to Rs 3500 per month. You may complain about the same to the PCDA(P) with a copy to the bank.

The medical board had granted me a disability of 40% but my PPO has been issued for a disability pension at the rate of 30%. Can the authorities reduce my disability percentage as was provided by the release medical board (Col ABC)

No. Hon’ble Courts have time and again held that administrative bodies cannot decrease the percentage of disability awarded by a medical board. You may take up the matter accordingly.

I was given 20% disability for a fracture and 30% for hypertension but the release medical board has granted me 40% composite disability for both disabilities combined. I am told that granting of composite disabilities is allowed, what is the correct position, can I file a case against this if this has been done illegally ? (Sqn Ldr T singh)

Grant of reduced composite disability percentage is authorised when there is a link between the two disabilities which overlap as far as the functional capability is concerned. As far as my limited understanding goes, there is no link between a fracture and hypertension and hence the medical board should have ideally granted you 50% disability. As far as filing of a case is concerned, one should never jump the gun and unnecessarily burden the dockets of Courts and Tribunals. You may like to take it up with the appellate authority or point it out to the Personnel Branch of your service and in all probability the issue would be sorted out departmentally. Approaching Courts should always be the last resort.

I have been told that toll tax exemption to retired gallantry awardees on National Highways has been withdrawn, is it true ? (Brig Kedar Nath)

All new notifications being issued by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways contain a stipulation that gallantry awardees shall remain exempted from payment of toll on Highways under the NHAI, hence no need to worry on that account.

Out of curiosity, I wanted some information about my grandfather’s service in World War II but the Record Office has replied that all documents related to my grandfather have been destroyed on completion of retention period according to rules, what is the way out now ? (Ashok Kumar)

You can still obtain information which is available on the ‘Long Roll’ maintained with the Records Office. You may write to them for a photocopy of the long roll and you are surely to get some basic interesting information including date of enrolment, date of discharge, reason of discharge etc.