High Court issues contempt notice to senior Defence Ministry officers, Army HQs for non-compliance of AFT orders on pension

Vijay Mohan

Chandigarh, October 22

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has issued contempt notice to senior officers of the Defence Accounts Department and Army Headquarters for non-compliance of juridical orders relating to the pension of ex-servicemen.

The Bench of Justice Arvind Singh Sangwan has directed the Principal Integrated Financial Adviser in the Ministry of Defence and the Additional Director General of Personnel Services at Army Headquarters to file their response before March 13, 2024.

The directions pertain to non-compliance of orders passed by the Chandigarh Bench of the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) by functionaries of the defence ministry, which breaches an undertaking given to the High Court by the respondents.

The issue concerns to the matter of retired Honorary Naib Subedars who were not paid interest on their pension arrears as directed by the AFT in 2017, and after repeated non-compliance and non-appearance of the officers concerned, the Chandigarh Bench of the AFT had issued notice for contempt and arrest warrants against the officers.

The MoD had then approached the High Court against the warrants and the contempt proceedings. Recording the undertaking that the MoD would comply with the orders of AFT by August 30, 2023, a Division Bench had then directed that the warrants would be kept in abeyance in case an affidavit of compliance was filed by the concerned officers by personally appearing in AFT on the date so fixed.

Though the officers then appeared before the AFT, the compliance affidavit was not filed, and rather, on the application of one of the officers, the contempt case itself was later transferred from the Chandigarh Bench to the Principal Bench at Delhi by the AFT Chairperson. This had also kicked up a controversy, with the AFT Bar Association terming the move as an assault on judicial independence.

The main petitioner in the case, Honorary Naib Subedar Roop Lal, a senior citizen, had approached the High Court under contempt jurisdiction, stating that the undertaking made before the Division Bench was flouted by the officers and that by getting the case transferred to Delhi the contemnors have succeeded to oust the jurisdiction of the Punjab and Haryana High Court which had passed orders for compliance.

It was also averred that regrettably the High Court orders have not been taken note of by the AFT Chairperson while transferring the matters from Chandigarh to Delhi and that the orders of a Constitutional Court have been circumvented through an administrative order by the Chairperson of a statutory tribunal and that too without notice to the affected party.