The Punjab and Haryana High Court has held that disability pension cannot be denied unless the medical board at the time of recruitment records that a person’s pre-existing medical condition does not render him unfit for military service. The court specified that the denial of pension is justified if the board determines that the subsequent deterioration in the person’s health is not due to military service but is a congenital disease. Mentioning the importance of medical assessment at the time of recruitment, a bench of Justice Suresh Thakur and Justice Sudipti Sharma also clarified that a person cannot be automatically disqualified from disability pension merely because of a pre-existing condition. This was so unless the board clearly determines that the deterioration was neither caused nor aggravated by military service. The bench also said that an illness will not be deemed to have arisen during service if the medical board concludes that it could not have been detected during the initial medical examination of the person before recruitment.
