Disability/Casualty awards notification with effect from 01 Jan 2006, issued today by the Ministry of Defence for defence pensioners

As explained in this earlier post of 30 April 2016, the Department of Pension & Pensioners’ Welfare (DoPPW) had issued the letter for grant of arrears of casualty benefits with effect from 01 Jan 2006 rather than 24 September 2012.

The same had been necessitated since though the Central Government had issued orders revising the pensions of central govt pensioners after removal of the anomaly of ‘minimum of pay band’ versus ‘minimum of pay within the pay band’ from 01-01-2006 rather than the artificial future cut-off date of 24-09-2012 based on the decision of various High Courts as affirmed by the Supreme Court, the parallel rates for disability and casualty awards however had not been revised by the w.e.f 01-01-2006 and the file had remained pending with the Ministry of Finance.

After issuance of the said letter by the DoPPW, the Department of Ex-Servicemen Welfare has also today issued the parallel letter for military pensioners. The same can be accessed by clicking here.

There were voices questioning the delay by the MoD in issuance of the said letter, but it may kindly be appreciated that there are various kinds of modalities on the defence side which need to be catered for flowing from the fact that there are certain complex situations in defence pensionary provisions which are not existing on the civil side, and hence some delay was expected. In any case, the arrears are w.e.f 01 Jan 2006 and hence the short delay hardly makes a difference.