In a historic decision, the Cabinet has extended the benefit of Ex-Servicemen Contributory Health Scheme (ECHS) to short service commissioned officers and emergency commissioned officers (SSCOs and ECOs) as well as some other categories of ex-military personnel.
Under regulations in vogue, only those defence personnel drawing a pension from the defence estimates are considered as “ex-servicemen” and those who do not fall under this category were not being granted certain benefits like the ECHS. They had been struggling for getting such benefits for the past several years.
The decision would immediately benefit over 43,000 individuals, who can now avail of free medicare in ECHS polyclinics and private empanelled hospitals after paying a one-time subscription, sources said.
The decision today comes in wake of directions issued by the Supreme Court in January that granted time to the government till April to act upon the issue while hearing an appeal filed by Ministry of Defence (MoD) against a judgement of the Chandigarh Bench of Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT).
In 2011, the AFT had ordered restoration of medical facilities to non-pensioner military veterans that had been abruptly withdrawn by the Director General Armed Forces Medical Services (DGAFMS) in late 2000s.
Medical facilities in military hospitals (MHs) were being provided to non-pensioner ex-defence personnel since 1970. Later, pension was made compulsory for availing facilities.
In 1997, the term ‘ex-service pensioners’ was again replaced by ‘ex-servicemen’ by the MoD thereby restoring facilities to those veterans who were released with the status of ‘ex-servicemen’ but without getting any pension.
In late 2000s, the DGAFMS started refusing treatment in military hospitals to non-pensioners. The AFT, in a strongly worded order, had directed the DGAFMS to restore the “illegally” withdrawn facilities, but the order was challenged in the apex court the same year.
In 2015, a Committee of Experts constituted by the government to suggest ways for reducing litigation had also came down heavily on the DGAFMS for this action, terming it to be illegal and recording that “such persistence and exertion in pursuing such misdirected litigation should rather be used for constructive activities”.
The panel also castigated the establishment for citing grossly exaggerated figures of affected beneficiaries in the appeal filed in SC. The committee’s recommendation for withdrawal of the appeal was accepted by the then defence minister, but his directions were not given effect which prompted the SC to direct the MoD to speed up the process.
Sources said the Cabinet decision to implement the judicial orders, which would affect thousands of past, present and future officers, not only includes non-pensioner SSCOs, ECOs and World War II veterans but also premature retirees of other categories. The fine print of other modalities of the scheme would be known in due course.
