Army Widow Granted Pension After 12-Year-Long Legal Battle

Lucknow: A soldier’s widow will finally get her dues following a 12-year-long legal fight.

The Chief of Army Staff and other respondents have been directed by the regional bench of the Armed Forces Tribunal to give pension to Savita Singh, wife of lance naik Shailendra Singh. Owing to a disability, Singh was invalidated from service in 2003.

The order was passed by a bench of Justice UC Srivastava (judicial member) and Vice Admiral Abhay Raghunath Karve (administrative member) on the application of the husband but later substituted by the wife after his death, reported news agency IANS.

The bench allowed the application and cautioned the Army to make the order effective within four months otherwise default would invite the interest of 8 per cent per annum till the actual payment.

Further, the bench had ordered to provide the pension from 2008 — the year her husband had died.

According to the bench, the arrears of the pension would be restricted to three years preceding the date of filing of the case before the tribunal in 2017.

Shailendra Singh had joined the Indian Army on January 1, 1996, but was invalidated out of service on March 17, 2003, after rendering more than seven years in low medical category P-5 due to disability ‘Recurrent Anaplastic Astrocytoma Left Temporo Parietal Region’ (OPTD), a rare malignant brain tumour, the agency report said.

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