A retired Army Nursing Officer has won her long fight for recognition, after the Delhi High Court set aside a ruling that denied her disability pension by wrongly linking obesity to hypertension.
The Bench, led by Justices C Hari Shankar and Om Prakash Shukla, made it clear that such assumptions cannot replace medical findings. “Not every person with obesity suffers from hypertension, and not every person with hypertension is obese,” the Court reminded, stressing that the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) had overstepped in drawing a link without medical proof.
The officer, who joined the Indian Army in 1969 and gave over 36 years of service, retired in 2006 in a low medical category. The Release Medical Board had assessed her with 1–5% disability for obesity and 30% for hypertension—enough to qualify for disability pension. Yet her claim was turned down, and later rejected by the AFT in 2018, which insisted her condition stemmed from weight issues.
The High Court firmly disagreed. It reiterated the principle that unless a disability is recorded at the time of induction, it is presumed to be caused or aggravated by military service—unless the medical board itself specifies otherwise. In this case, neither the medical board nor the specialist established a causal link between obesity and hypertension.
Calling the AFT’s reasoning “contrary to settled law,” the Court ordered the government to release her disability pension along with arrears.
For the veteran nurse, it marked not just financial relief, but a restoration of dignity after years of service and struggle.