Disability pension tax: Rather than vilifying soldiers, Defence Ministry should work with forces to prevent dishonest claims

The Indian bureaucracy seems to have a way of ensuring that every few months some ruling or the other is released which causes anguish to the serving security personnel and the veterans of the armed forces. The order has turned around a provision that goes back almost a hundred years, which granted exemption from Income Tax to all those who exited service with a duly certified medical disability. This disability relates to aggravation of health due to service conditions, injuries suffered in the line of duty while facing the enemy, internal security duties or accidents attributable to service. All these war heroes carried attributable disability and there are many like them who may have suffered injuries, not just in battle, but also under unique circumstances which service conditions throw up time to time. A retiring Director General Armed Forces whose responsibility was to ascertain and officially certify the percentage of disability of all retiring personnel, at the end of his service, wrote to the defence secretary with an insinuation that senior officers of the forces wrongly claim disability benefits.