IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA CWJC No.6325 of 2001 SHRI RAMANAND Versus THE UNION OF INDIA & ORS ----------- 4 22.01.2009 Heard counsel for the petitioner and counsel for the Union of India. This is the third attempt of the petitioner before this Court seeking a direction that the respondent, Government of India to sanction and make payment of pension under the Freedom Fighter Pension Scheme. The petitioner claims that as in the year 1942 he had participated in the freedom struggle by remaining underground and was declared as an absconder he qualifies for this benefit of pension in terms of the policy of the Government of India. . The respondents have considered the case of the petitioner and by the impugned order dated 27th of November 2000, the same has been rejected for the following reasons namely: - “i) In your application submitted in 1981, you had not indicated in which GR number/case you were actually involved. Subsequently photo copies of Personal Knowledge Certificate of Shri Ram Briksh Singh along with a copy of GR No. 1579/42 and one Non-availability of Record Certificate were submitted on 22.2.1993. You had not furnished any Court document or any record based evidence as a proof of your having undergone underground suffering. ii) The State Govt. vide their letter dated 18.11.98 had indicated that your case was not - 2 - recommended by State Advisory Committee at any stage. It was sent by the concerned officer of the State Govt. unauthorisedly and the case is presently being investigated by Vigilance Department of State Govt. Specific recommendation of State Govt. is essential before considering a case for sanction of pension as per provisions as the Scheme. iii) Further, the State Govt. vide their letter dated 16.2.1999 indicated that your date of birth, as entered in your service book is 6.4.34, and thus at the time as claimed participation during Quit India Movement, 1942, you were only 8 years and 4 months old. Accordingly to the Juvenile Justice Act the individual should have been kept in a remand home. There is no question of any young man being his co-prisoner. Further under the same Act, the child could have obtained bail as a matter of right. If you did not exercise your right of bail and intead, preferred to go in absconsion, this was a voluntary act and voluntary absconsion is not considered as a suffering for grant of SSS Pension.” Counsel for the petitioner submits that it is immaterial for the petitioner not to have disclosed GR No. and case no. in the first application submitted in the year 1991 and therefore, the reason which has weighed upon the Respondents in rejecting the case of the petitioner is based on wholly uncalled for material. He would refer to paragraph Nos. 19 to 24 of the writ application to contend that this was not the reason taken earlier for rejecting the claim of the petitioner inasmuch as the earlier orders of the Government of India - 3 - rejecting the prayer of the petitioner on two occasions were based either on an incorrect /inadmissible certificate of one Pashupati Singh Prabal, or on account of the absence of recommendation of State level Advisory Committee. Mr. Ojha, learned counsel for the petitioner therefore submits that no third reason could have been supplied inasmuch as the judicial decorum would not permit this Court to allow the respondents to take any further plea beyond what was taken by them on two earlier occasions. This Court would find that the grant of pension under the Freedom Fighter Scheme is one circumscribed by the policy of the Government of India. Such policies lays down the term and condition of entitlement. The entitlement therefore has to be gone into in the light of the materials on record and, documents to be produced by the person claiming it and its due verification through the agency of the State. A detailed procedure therefore has been laid down only to evaluate such claim of the person claiming pension. In course of such evaluation if the Government of India comes to a conclusion that the person like the petitioner who did not choose to claim in the manner prescribed, even after being a freedom fighter of the year 1942 and disclose the details of his involvement in the first application inasmuch as even, failed to give the details of criminal case, its GR. No. or case no,. such consideration for testing the eligibility and bonafide of the petitioner cannot be said to be irrelevant much less uncalled for. It was for the Government of India to be satisfied as to whether the petitioner was making a correct claim and if in that - 4 - process the things have been analyzed in the impugned order as per reasons indicated above, this Court would find it difficult to sit over the same as an appellate authority. That apart this Court in the earlier order dated 20.7.1998 did not as a matter of fact hold that there was already a recommendation of the State Advisory Committee existing in favour of the petitioner. In fact certain observations were made on the basis of which the Government of Bihar was directed to be act. There is nothing to show that when subsequently, the impugned order was passed, the State of Bihar being the nodal agency through its Advisory Committee had recommended for grant of such pension to the petitioner. That being so, at least reasons indicated in the impugned order does not suffer from any error either factual or legal. Mr. Ojha, counsel for the petitioner had also referred to certain observations made in the order of the Division Bench of this Court dated 4.7.2000 to contend that once this Court had held that it would not be a proper to reject the application for grant of pension to a freedom fighter only on the score of age, such interparte finding could not have been questioned as has been done in the impugned order. The submission of Mr. Ojha, initially seems to be quite attractive but then the use of the word further in sub-paragraph no. (iii) of the impugned order quoted above would make it clear that it was an additional reason which were taken into consideration apart from reason contained in sub- paragraph nos. (i) and (ii) of the impugned, .all the three reasons together infact have weighed upon, - 5 - the respondents to reject the case of grant of pension of the petitioner. As a matter of fact, if the petitioner has not chosen to deny this fact even in this writ petition that his date of birth recorded in his service book is 6.4.1934 while entering in a government service which entry was made only after due verification of the petitioner himself, the inescapable inference would be that the petitioner had tried to make out a case that while participating in the Quit India Movement in August, 1942, he was aged about 8 years and 4 months. The petitioner therefore cannot make a grievance if the authorities of the Government of India have found a boy of barely 8 years of age could not have participated in Freedom Movement. This Court, thus upon analyzing the materials on record is fully satisfied that no error has been committed by the respondents in passing the impugned order refusing grant of pension to the petitioner under Freedom Fighter Scheme. That being so, this writ application is wholly misconceived and is hereby dismissed. Bibhash (Mihir Kumar Jha, J.)