Agencies
NEW DELHI, Nov 13: The status of 'martyr' is not accorded to armed forces personnel who sacrifice their lives on the line of duty and hence cannot be given to the paramilitary forces, government has told the Delhi High Court, terming a plea on the matter as "misconceived".
"The prayer... To grant 'martyr' or 'shaheed' to Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) at par with army, navy and air force is misconceived as the very same status is not actually being granted to the personnel of Army, Navy and Air Force," a bench of justices S Ravindra Bhat and Deepa Sharma was informed.
In an affidavit, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and other ministries said the word 'martyr' was not used in the three services and "no such order/notification has been issued by the MoD to call martyr, (those) who are killed during duty. Similarly, no such notification has been issued by Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) for the CAPF and Assam Rifle (AR) personnel."
The government's response came on a PIL by advocates Abhishek Choudhary and Harsh Ahuja to grant equal status to paramilitary and police forces like the armed forces in granting 'martyr' status to the deceased personnel.
The response was sought after the government informed the court that it had no such scheme, as sought in the PIL.
The government said that "in army/navy/air force, the nomenclature for the word 'martyr' is battle casuality and physical casuality. The word 'martyr' is not used in the three services."
"Therefore, the prayer of the petitioner that the status of 'martyr' or 'shaheed' be given to the deceased Paramilitary Armed Forces personnel at par with army, navy and air force is misconceived and unfounded. It is denied CAPF personnel are being deprived of the honour they deserve," the MHA, MoD and Department of Personnel and Training and Ministry have said in the affidavit filed jointly by them.
Chaudhary, in his plea, sought a direction to the government to grant equal financial compensation and benefits to paramilitary armed forces personnel on par with the army, navy and air force.
To this, the government said the "families/next of kin are given same benefits as available to defence personnel i.E full family pension under Liberalized Pension Awards, that is last pay drawn and lump sum ex-gratia compensation under the similar set of guidelines as applicable to the defence personnel."
The government also refuted the allegation in the plea that while martyr status was not being granted to the Indo- Tibetan Border Police personnel who were killed on the line of duty along with five Indian Air Force personnel in a helicopter crash near Gaurikhand in Uttarakhand, the air force officers were getting the honour.
It said the issue of declaring CAPF and AR personnel who died while on active service as 'martyr/shaheed' was considered by the Committee of Secretaries (COS) in 2011.
"During the meeting, the special secretary, MoD stated that 'shaheed/martyr' was not defined anywhere and presently they were not issuing any order/notification. It was important not to start a new practice or introduce the requirement to notify or certify a shaheed/martyr," the affidavit said, adding that it was equally important that action in this regard does not lead to any other unintended consequences.
"The priorities of state governments cannot be pre-empted and the overall balance that has been evolved in public policy between external defence and internal security and maintenance of public law and order should be maintained. Benefits and concessions should be given, but not for prestige alone," it added. |
