Soldier’s bathroom fall injury can’t be used for disability pension: Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT)

Chandigarh: The Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) has held that injuries caused due to slipping in a bathroom of a barrack in the unit lines would not entitle a soldier to disability pension, underscoring that the injury or death must be the intervention of armed forces services and not an accident attributable to risks common to people.
A division bench, comprising Justice Anil Kumar (retd), judicial member, and Major General Sanjay Singh (retd), administrative member of AFT, Lucknow bench, passed the orders while dismissing a plea filed by Lance Naik (Gunner) Vipin Chander Singh Rawat, now retired, a resident of Dehradun, Uttarakhand.He was seeking a disability element of pension on the ground that he suffered injuries inside a military accommodation.
Relying on a Supreme Court verdict in 2010 in a case of Jagtar Singh versus Union of India and Others, the tribunal said, “The disability should not be the result of an accident which could be attributed to risk common to human existence in modern conditions in India, unless such risk is enhanced in kind or degree by nature, conditions, obligations, or incidents of military service.”
Rawat joined the Army on Jan 12, 2004. While serving with 306 field regiment, he sustained a injury after he slipped on the wet floor of a bathroom of his barrack on Aug 15, 2017.