Army Colonel Keeps Hypertension Disability Pension Rounded Off To 50% After 31 Years’ Service, As Delhi HC Rejects Union Challenge

Col. Mohit Nasa served in the Army from 16 December 1989 until his discharge on 28 February 2023.

A Release Medical Board assessed his primary hypertension at 30% for life but found it neither attributable to nor aggravated by military service; the competent authority rejected his disability-pension claim.

The Armed Forces Tribunal allowed his application and directed payment of disability pension for primary hypertension, rounded from 30% to 50%.

The Union of India challenged that decision, arguing that the Tribunal had failed to give due weight to the Medical Board’s opinion and that the disability had manifested while Nasa was posted in a peace area.

The High Court noted that he had served for over three decades and that his service-entry records contained no note of pre-existing illness.

The Court applied the Entitlement Rules, 2008, including Rules 5, 6, 7, 10 and 11, read with Regulation 423 of the Regulations for the Medical Services of the Armed Forces, 2010.

Under this framework, the absence of a disease at entry into service and the circumstances of service are relevant to attributability or aggravation; the employer bears the onus of rebutting the applicable presumption, and reasonable doubt is to be resolved in favour of the service member.

Relying on Dharamvir Singh v. Union of India, (2013) 7 SCC 316, and Union of India v. Rajbir Singh, 2015 SCC OnLine SC 119, the Court reiterated that a member is presumed to have entered service in sound condition where no contrary record exists, and that the burden of proving non-entitlement lies on the employer.

It further relied on Union of India v. Col. N.C. Isaac (Retd.), 2026 SCC OnLine SC 1895, for the conclusion that the 2008 Rules did not displace the core beneficial scheme of the earlier rules, and on HFL Youdhisthir Singh (Retd.) v. Union of India, 2026 SCC OnLine Del 2747, for the principle that onset in a peace station does not, by itself, defeat a claim.

A Medical Board’s opinion is relevant but must be supported by cogent reasons and assessed alongside the governing rules and medical guidance.

Nasa’s long service and the absence of any recorded hypertension at entry brought his case within the presumption described in Dharamvir Singh.

The Court held that the 2008 Rules did not alter the essential burden on the Union to establish that the condition was not attributable to or aggravated by service.

Nor did onset at a peace station defeat the claim: Regulation 423 makes the location of onset immaterial, while the service conditions and causal connection remain relevant.

The Medical Board had not shown that hypertension existed at induction or supplied cogent reasons establishing that service neither caused nor aggravated it. Its conclusion therefore did not rebut the presumption.

The pending application was also disposed of.