CWP No. 18124 of 2011(O&M) 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB & HARYANA, CHANDIGARH CWP No. 18124 of 2011(O&M) Date of decision December 7, 2011 Joginder Singh ....... Petitioner Versus Union of India and others ........ Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN Present:- Mr. Onkar Rai, Advocate for the petitioner. Mr. Karminder Singh, Advocate for respondent No.1 and 2. Ms. Kirti Singh, DAG., Haryana for respondent No. 3. **** 1. Whether reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment ?No 2. To be referred to the reporters or not? No 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the digest?No K. Kannan, J (oral). CM No.15114 of 2011 C.M.is allowed. Reply on behalf of respondent Nos. 1 and 2 is taken on record. CWP No. 18124 of 2011 1. Reply on behalf of respondent No.3 has been filed in Court. The same is taken on record. 2. The petitioner seeks for quashing of the order rejecting the petitioner's claim for pension under the Swatanter Sainik Scheme. The petitioner has adduced proof of the fact that he has CWP No. 18124 of 2011(O&M) 2 undergone an imprisonment and detained at the Central Jail, Lahore from 20.10.1942 to 19.10.1943 through the copy of the register maintained by the Superintendent District Jail, Lahore. The scheme sets out the eligibility in clause 4 which is reproduced as under:- “Who is eligible? For the purpose of grant of Samman pension under the scheme a freedom fighter is:- a) A person who had suffered minimum imprisonment of six months in the mainland jails before independence. However ex-INA personnel will be eligible for pension if the imprisonment/detention suffered by them was outside India. b) the minimum period of actual imprisonment for eligibility of pension has been reduced to three months, in case of women and SC/ST freedom fighters from 1.8.1980.” The scheme also gives the procedure to receive the pension through Clause 11 which is reproduced as under:- “On receipt of sanction order, the Accountant General concerned will issue PPO authorizing the Treasury/Sub- treasury officer concerned to make payment of the Pension on production of identification documents which will consist of:- 1. photograph 2. Two prominent identification marks. 3. Specimen signature or left hand thumb and finger impressions duly attested by a competent authority in the case of freedom fighters who are not literate enough to sign their names. 4. Date of birth.” 3. One of the requirements is the proof of date of birth. The petitioner claims that he has no date of birth registered and in proof of his birth he has relied on his own statement and the voter's list. CWP No. 18124 of 2011(O&M) 3 The Union has noticed that in the voter's list his age is shown 74 years which would mean that he should have been minor even at the time of his imprisonment. It has also referred to the fact that the petitioner's declaration of his own age as 82 would mean that he would still have been a minor at the time of imprisonment. T he State Government has filed its reply and it has stated that it has carried out its enquiries and made its recommendation, satisfied as it is about identity of the petitioner and the imprisonment suffered by the petitioner. 4. The Union has still rejected the petitioner's claim essentially on two grounds although, seven grounds are made. One is with reference to the age that there is no proper proof and his own declaration of his age as 82 years and the reference to age of 74 years in the voter's list make it impossible that the petitioner should have been subjected to imprisonment. The other objection is that the State Government has not given non-availability of records certificate. As regards the age, in a case where the petitioner claims that he has no proof of birth and his date of birth was not registered, the discrepancy found by referring to the voter's list and his own oral assertion cannot be a ground for rejection. It is not uncommon that the age entered in a voter's list is sometimes wide off the mark and if a person is old as any freedom fighter ought to be, I cannot treat the entry as found in the voter's list as so certain that the petitioner could be even denied his status as a freedom fighter. The voter's list is merely a roll prepared to ensure that the person is more than of the minimum age prescribed for voting. Beyond that the age mentioned cannot be taken to be the last word. Again the rejection of the petitioner's request that there had been no certificate of non-availability of records is irrelevant for, in this case, the jail certificate itself is produced and every one of the requirements as mentioned in clause 11 of the scheme thus became available. I had already observed that the issue of date of birth cannot be CWP No. 18124 of 2011(O&M) 4 taken against the petitioner and the recommendation given by the State must be taken as sufficient under the peculiar circumstances that the petitioner fulfills all the relevant criteria for grant of pension. 5. The impugned order is quashed and the writ petition is allowed. The Union is directed to release the pension payable to the petitioner within a period of six weeks from the date of receipt of copy of the order. (K. KANNAN) JUDGE December 7, 2011 archana