Kargil arthritis earns war injury pension: Supreme Court holds Operation Rakshak is a notified operation
Justice Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha and Justice Alok Aradhe dismiss the Ministry of Defence appeal, read Category E(i) of the 2001 policy letter by its plain words, and tell the Government to state what each notified operation carries.
A soldier who developed seropositive rheumatoid arthritis while posted at Kargil between 2003 and 2005 is entitled to war injury pension, not merely disability pension, because his posting was part of Operation Rakshak and the Ministry of Defence has never said that Operation Rakshak falls outside its own policy. On 28 October 2026 the Supreme Court dismissed the Union of India’s appeal against concurrent orders of the Armed Forces Tribunal and the High Court in favour of Narender Kumar, and took the occasion to tell the Ministry two things: that it is high time it issued a single, clearly identifiable body of subordinate legislation for the services, and that whenever it notifies an operation in future it must state in terms whether war injury pension attaches to it.
The judgment, delivered by a bench of Justice Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha and Justice Alok Aradhe and marked reportable, turns on a short point of interpretation. Category E of Part II, paragraph 4.1 of the Ministry’s policy letter of 31 January 2001 lists nine circumstances in which death or disability earns the war injury benefit. The ninth, sub-category E(i), is Operations specially notified by the Govt. from time to time. The Ministry argued that this covers only discrete operations such as Operation Sindoor or Operation Snow Leopard, not standing deployments like Operation Rakshak across Jammu and Kashmir or Operation Rhino across Assam. The Court found nothing in the policy, or in any notification, that drew that line.
Sixteen years of service, three disabilities and a late claim
Narender Kumar enrolled in the Indian Army on 30 December 1996. While posted at Kargil from 13 July 2003 to 6 July 2005 he was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis (seropositive). Later, on a posting in West Bengal, two spinal conditions were added: prolapsed intervertebral discs at L4/5 and L5/S1, and at C5/C6, the latter operated. He applied for discharge, and when he left service on 31 January 2013 the Release Medical Board accepted all three disabilities as aggravated by military service, assessing them at 70 per cent for life, rounded off to 75 per cent. With more than sixteen years of service he was granted disability pension, made up of a service element and a disability element.
He drew that pension without complaint for about six years. Then, in 2019, he moved the Armed Forces Tribunal in OA No. 221 of 2019, asking that the disability pension for the arthritis be replaced by war injury pension under Category E(i), on the footing that the disease was a direct consequence of his Kargil posting. The Ministry opposed the application principally on the ground that his disability was not covered by Category E(i). It also took a position on rounding off: the benefit was not admissible from 1 February 2013, but he could claim rounding to 75 per cent with effect from 1 January 2016.
The Tribunal allowed the application on 8 April 2024. It found that the arthritis had originated in January 2005 while he was serving at Kargil with 14F RAJ RIF; that the entire Jammu and Kashmir area is an operational area, so the Ministry’s stand that the disability was not caused by enemy action in an international war, a peacekeeping mission, a terrorist attack or a border skirmish had no substance; and that he had made out a clear case for the war injury element under Category E(i). The Ministry’s writ petition, CWP No. 23117 of 2025, was dismissed by the High Court on 11 August 2025, which held that the Release Medical Board’s opinion proved the disease had originated during the Kargil posting. The Union came to the Supreme Court by special leave; delay was condoned and leave granted.
Which rule applies? The Court wonders aloud
Before reaching the merits the bench recorded a complaint it has evidently made before. As usual, the bench wrote, there was uncertainty about which rules, regulations, instructions and policies of the Ministry applied. The Court said it continued to wonder why that uncertainty persists and that it was high time the Ministry issued “comprehensive and clearly identifiable subordinate legislation” governing the services, which it described as necessary for fairness in action and for good governance.
The judgment noted that paragraph 4.1 of Part II of the 2001 policy letter has since been carried into the Pension Regulations for the Army, 2008. Chapter IV of those Regulations deals with casualty pensionary awards where invalidment or death is attributable to or aggravated by military service, and Regulation 82 sets out five categories, A to E, with Category E covering nine war or war-like circumstances in terms more or less matching the policy letter. Because both the Additional Solicitor General and counsel for the respondent argued from the policy letter, the Court did the same.
Five categories, and the one that stands alone
Part II of the letter, headed pensionary benefits on death or disability in attributable or aggravated cases, grades cases into five categories. Category A is death or disability from natural causes, neither attributable to nor aggravated by service. Category B is disease attributable to or aggravated by service conditions, which earns disability pension. Category C is death or disability from accidents in the performance of duty, also carrying disability pension. Category D is death or disability from acts of violence by terrorists or antisocial elements, on duty or not. Category E, reproduced in full in the judgment, covers death or disability arising from enemy action in international war; action on a peacekeeping mission abroad; border skirmishes; laying or clearing mines; accidental mine explosions in operational areas near the international border or the Line of Control; war-like situations including extremist acts on the way to an operational area, battle inoculation exercises with live ammunition, kit mapping by extremists on operational duty and flying operations; acts of violence by extremists on operational duty; action against extremists and antisocial elements in aid of civil power; and, at E(i), operations specially notified by the Government from time to time.
Additional Solicitor General Archana Pathak Dave put the Ministry’s case emphatically. The respondent’s belated claim did not fall within Category E(i). If a standing deployment like Operation Rakshak were treated as a notified operation, the other clauses of Category E would be rendered otiose and every soldier posted in Jammu and Kashmir would become entitled to war injury pension. Category E(i), she argued, is for operations specially notified such as Operation Sindoor or Operation Snow Leopard, not ongoing operations like Rakshak or Rhino. She also relied on paragraph 44 of Army Order 01 of 2003, under which battle casualty reports are not initiated in ongoing operations like Operation Rakshak or Operation Rhino.
Counsel for Narender Kumar asked the Court to adopt the reasoning of the Tribunal and the High Court: Operation Rakshak at Kargil is an integral part of the operations specially notified by the Government under E(i), and many High Courts had held war injury pension admissible for disabilities arising from postings in such notified areas. Turning the Ministry’s own Army Order against it, he pointed to clauses 4 and 5 and Appendix A, where clause (g) classifies as battle casualties those occurring while operating on the international border or the Line of Control owing to natural calamities and illness caused by climatic conditions. The respondent’s arthritis, he said, was directly attributable to the climate at the Line of Control at Kargil.
Plain words, and the burden on the policymaker
The Court began from the structure of Category E. Sub-categories (a) to (h), it said, describe egregious situations akin to war or extreme violence, where personnel posted in the area can be expected to face life-threatening conditions, and the list may not be exhaustive. Sub-category E(i) exists to give the defence administration flexibility, since not every war-like situation can be made to start and finish within the eight listed heads. The Government reserved to itself a discretion to notify an additional operation under E(i) from time to time, as circumstances required. On the plain language of the policy, once a notification is issued for a specific operation, Category E(i) is invoked, unless something in the policy or in the notification itself indicates otherwise. Apart from the oral statement of the Additional Solicitor General that Operation Rakshak was not intended to be covered, the bench found no interpretative aid that would let it exclude Rakshak from E(i).
The bench then set out how courts approach a policymaker’s reading of its own policy. The power to prescribe who a policy applies to and on what conditions lies entirely with the defence administration. But policy formulations must clearly articulate their scope, ambit and application, and when a dispute about applicability arises, the primary burden is on the policymaker to show the circumstances in which the benefit accrues or does not. Ordinarily the policymaker’s prescription will not be disturbed. The exception is where its approach goes beyond the range of reasonable meaning the plain words can bear, or where it reads its own policy against the plain language or in a way that is discriminatory, arbitrary, irrational or contrary to the policy’s purpose; then the courts will disregard the interpretation offered. When interpreting plain language, the bench said, courts simply declare what a policy says, “not what is in the imagination of the policymaker”.
E(i), the Court added, is enabling in nature. Since the sub-category does not say which specially notified operations fall outside it, the policy applies to all of them, and it must. Where the language of a policy is unrestrictive, it is not the Court’s job to narrow it by interpretation, particularly when the policy concerns pensionary benefits; a liberal reading is compelling, and that is the approach the Court has taken to such policies.
Army Order 1 of 2003 set aside as unhelpful
The Ministry’s reliance on paragraph 44 of the Army Order, to show that Operation Rakshak is not an E(i) operation because battle casualty reports are not raised in it, did not persuade the bench. The Army Order is concerned with the classification of physical and battle casualties, and the respondent had relied on the same instrument, through clause (g) of Appendix A, to argue that illness caused by climatic conditions on the Line of Control is itself a battle casualty. The Court decided it was unnecessary to refer to or rely on the Army Order at all, because it “causes more confusion than it clarifies”. The policy letter was clear: where no distinction is drawn between notifications issued under Category E(i), the benefit cannot be denied.
The bench therefore saw no reason to take a view different from the Tribunal and the High Court. It added a direction for the future. When the Government notifies operations under Category E(i), it must declare in clear terms whether the pensionary benefits under paragraph 4.1, Category E(i) of the 2001 policy letter apply to that notification or not.
Order
The civil appeal arising out of SLP (C) Diary No. 27220 of 2026, directed against the High Court’s judgment of 11 August 2025 in CWP No. 23117 of 2025, is dismissed. The Armed Forces Tribunal’s order of 8 April 2024 in OA No. 221 of 2019 granting Narender Kumar the war injury element under Category E(i) for his rheumatoid arthritis, as affirmed by the High Court, stands. Pending applications are disposed of.