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The Delhi High court today dismissed as withdrawn plea filed by Humara Desh Humare Jawan Trust seeking direction to the central government to remove the differences in the pension schemes and also to include the Armed Forces under the Ministry of Home Affairs under the old pension scheme.

The petition was withdrawn after the bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw said that several petitions were already pending before the Court and the petitioner could file an application in those petitions.

Justice Endlaw said “You don’t need a PIL for this. Affected personnel are already before the Court and the outcome of such adjudication would be applicable to persons similarly placed.”

Advocate Ajay K Agrawal appeared for the petitioner trust.

The petitioner Trust had earlier approached the Supreme Court which dismissed the plea with the liberty to approach the High Court.

The plea states that “Border Security Force, Indo Tibetan Border Police, Assam Rifles, Shastra Seema Bail is protecting our International Borders and equipped with the same weaponry as is provided to forces under Defence Ministry. It’s services are no less than the forces under the Defence Ministry. These forces are protecting our borders round the clock and thousands of personnel had laid their live protecting our borders. Another force namely, CRPF is not only the world’s biggest armed force but is also considered to be the bravest armed force in the world having a strength of more than 3 lac personnel. On 14th February 2019 in Pulwama attack around 40 CRPF Personnel had laid their lives.” 

“Each and every personnel of Armed Forces which comes under the Ministry of Home Affairs wants to get pension under the Old Pension Scheme but the Central Government has denied the pension under the Old Pension Scheme to the Personnel of Armed forces which comes under the Ministry of Home Affairs and therefore discriminating with the armed forces under the Ministry of Defence while both the forces are Armed Forces of the Union.”

Case Title: Humara Desh Humare Jawan vs UOI