Friday, July 5, 2019

Centre told to pay pension to freedom fighter aged 100
K.Kaushik@timesgroup.com

Madurai:5.7.2019

Taking a dig at the Centre for making a 100-yearold freedom fighter run from pillar to post for his pension, the Madurai bench of the Madras high court dismissed an appeal by the Union government against a single judge order and directed it to grant pension to him from the date of application submitted in 2014, within a period of four weeks.

A division bench of Justice K Ravichandrabaabu and justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy which heard the appeal filed by M Kaliyan, of Sivaganga, observed, “A man aged about 100 years who fought for the freedom of this country, was imprisoned by the British, and ultimately succeeded in seeing a free India, is now made to suffer at the hands of the bureaucrats.”

Kaliyan had participated in the Quit India Movement and was imprisoned from March 1943 to March 1944 at the Madurai Central Prison. The state government under the State Freedom Pensioner’s Scheme had granted pension to Kaliyan. He appliedfor theCentre’s Swatantrata Sainik Samman Pension Scheme,1980. As pension was not granted, he moved the high court. A single judge on October 30, 2018 passed an order to grant pension. During the hearing, the counsel for the Centre stated Kaliyan produced only secondary evidence — co-prisoner’s certificate and lacked primary evidence — jail certificate, and denied pension.

No comments:

Post a Comment

NEWS TODAY 14,11,2024