Union Of India vs Col. Jiwan Chandra (Retd.)

C. Hari Shankar, J.

These writ petitions deal with the entitlement of the respondents to disability pension. The Union of India assails decisions of the Armed Forces Tribunal, whereby disability pension stands granted to the respondents.

These cases stand covered by as on date more than eighty judgments passed by this Bench as well as by a Coordinate Benche of this Court. They also stand covered by the judgment of the Supreme Court in Dharamvir Singh v UOI^{11.(2013) 7 SCC 316} as well as the recent decision of the Supreme Court in Vijender Singh v UOI^{22.2025 SCC OnLIne SC 895}.

Against one of these decisions, which was rendered by us in UOI v Ex Sub Gawas Anil Madso^{33.2025 SCC OnLine 2018}, an SLP has been preferred before the Supreme Court in which notice alone has been issued and no interim orders have been passed.

We are not informed that any SLP has been preferred against any of the other matters passed by this Bench or the Coordinate Bench.

In its recent decision in Union Territory of Ladakh v Jammu & Kashmir National Conference^{44.2023 SCC OnLine SC 1140}, the Supreme Court has deprecated the practice of hierarchically lower Courts including the High Courts keeping matters pending merely because some issue is pending before the Supreme Court. Even where the correctness of a judgment has been doubted by the Supreme Court, the decision in Jammu & Kashmir National Conference directs High Courts to implement the law as it stands and not to adjourn matters awaiting the outcome of the appeals in the Supreme Court.

We have taken stock of this judgment in para 60 of the judgment in Gawas Anil Madso.

We, therefore, proceed to decide these writ petitions on the basis of the decisions taken by this Court.

A tabular statement of the position as it emerges in all these writ petitions, including the decisions by which the individual writ petitions, may be provided thus:

These appeals stand covered, in identical circumstances, by several decisions rendered by this Court, in which disability pension was denied on identical grounds. Some of the representative decisions may be cited thus:

The reasons for our disinclination to interfere with the decision of the Tribunal are forthcoming in the individual judgements passed by us, and we do not deem it necessary to burden this order by a reiteration thereof. Suffice it to state that learned Counsel for the UOI, in these petitions, too, was unable to urge that these cases are not covered by our earlier decisions.

Following the aforesaid, all these writ petitions are dismissed. The petitioners are directed to implement the orders passed by the Tribunal within a period of eight weeks from today.