DINESH SHARMA Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) HEARD Sri Ashok Jang Bahadur, learned counsel for the petitioner and Sri Sarvadeo Singh, learned Central Government Standing Counsel for the Union of India on the point of maintainability of the present writ petition.

(2.) THE petitioner Ex -Nayak (Honorary Havildar) was initially appointed as Sepoy in Indian Army on 23rd December. 1978 and was discharged from his service with effect from 31.12.1998. The petitioner, while invoking extraordinary writ jurisdiction of this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, has prayed for quashing of an Order No. 14531839/RA4/PEN dated 9th July, 2009 (Annexure -14 to the petition), whereby the petitioner 'sapplication with prayer for rounding off disability element was rejected. The petitioner further prays for modifying the order of disability pension dated 4.2.2000 (Annexure -6 to the petition), whereby he was granted 20% disability pension with effect from 9.1.1999 and prayed to direct the Respondents to give 50% disability pension with effect from 1.1.1999.

(3.) BY way of filing an affidavit, a preliminary objection has been raised by the Union of India on the ground that after establishment of Armed Forces Tribunal (hereinafter referred to as "the Tribunal") under the Armed Forces Tribunal Act, 2007( hereinafter referred to as "the Act"), the petitioner was required to approach the Tribunal for the relief, which has been sought for in the present writ petition. In its affidavit, Section 3(o) of the Act has been quoted and it has been asserted that the dispute, which has been raised in the present writ petition, is relating to service matter and all the disputes relating to service matter is to be raised before the Tribunal. Learned counsel for the Union of India has also referred to Section 33 of the Act with a view to persuade the Court that the jurisdiction of all the Court relating to service matter has been excluded and further in view of Section 34 of the Act, all pending matters were required to be transferred to the Armed Forces Tribunal. The Armed Forces Tribunal, as per learned counsel for the Union of India, has already been established in the month of November, 2009 and the present writ petition was filed after the establishment of the said Tribunal at. Calcutta (West Bengal), which is having jurisdiction over the matter.