No genuine freedom fighter should be deprived of pension, says HC

Observing that the collective debt of the nation to its freedom fighters can by no means be repaid, the Madras High Court on Thursday mentioned each effort should be taken to make sure that no genuine freedom fighter is deprived of the meagre pension paid to them even when the method leads to a couple pretenders benefitting out of the leniency proven by the federal government in granting such pension.

Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy noticed so whereas dismissing an attraction most popular by the Union Home Ministry towards an order handed by Justice M. Govindaraj on March 10, 2020 directing the Centre to grant Swatantra Sainik Samman pension to N.V. Vadivelu who had participated within the Quit India motion and received jailed for about seven months in Karnataka.

The judges mentioned it was fairly doable that some suspicious candidates may make merry by acquiring freedom fighters’ pension on the idea of false claims. At the identical time, it was additionally doable that some genuine freedom fighters may be deprived of the best for need of documentation. Therefore, it could be considered to err on the aspect of a liberal method and permit genuine claimants to derive the profit.

Further, assessing that the freedom fighters’ pension scheme by itself might turn out to be out of date in one other 10 years since not many of them would be alive to say or obtain the profit, the Division Bench mentioned: “In the context of what the Indian economy is now worth, it can afford to commit the mistake and make payment to a few pretenders so that the real freedom fighters are not left out.”