Bombay HC slams Centre over delay in Agniveer benefits case

The Bombay High Court pulled up the Centre over delay in responding to a plea by the mother of Agniveer Murali Naik, seeking equal benefits with regular soldiers under the Agnipath Scheme after his death in Operation Sindoor

Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Tuesday slammed the Centre for failing to respond to a petition filed by the mother of an agniveer who died during Operation Sindoor seeking posthumous benefits on par with regular soldiers killed in action, and warned of imposing high costs on it.

A bench of Justices Ravindra Ghuge and Hiten Venegaonkar granted the Centre time till May 6 to file its affidavit in response to the plea filed by the mother of Agniveer Murali Naik, who was killed in cross-border shelling in Jammu & Kashmir during Operation Sindoor in May last year. The court noted that notices were issued to the Centre in December last year and then again in January, but to date, the response has not been filed.

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“The petition has been pending since last year. Issues raised in the plea have also been addressed by the petitioner in a letter to the government in July last year. There is some urgency. If a reply affidavit is not filed by the next date, we will impose heavy cost,” Justice Ghuge warned. The court stated that no further adjournments will be given.

It directed the Maharashtra government to file its affidavit and posted the matter for further hearing on June 18. Jyotibai Naik, the mother of Murali Naik, in her plea, stated that the Centre’s Agnipath scheme creates an “arbitrary” distinction between Agniveers and regular soldiers, and questioned the “discriminatory” denial of full death benefits to the family.

Murali Naik was killed on May 9 last year in Poonch, J&K, when the Pakistan Army resorted to heavy cross-border artillery and mortar attacks, as India launched Operation Sindoor, a military action in retaliation against the Pahalgam terror strike that killed 26 people, mostly tourists, in April last year.

The petition, filed through advocates Sandesh More, Hemant Ghadigaonkar and Hitendra Gandhi, argued that Agniveers perform the same duties and face the same risks as regular soldiers, yet the families of those recruited under the short-term induction programme are denied long-term pension and other welfare benefits.

“The Agnipath scheme introduced by the government expressly excludes Agniveers from post-service pension benefits and other long-term welfare entitlements normally available to regular soldiers,” the petition pointed out. As per the plea, the Naik family received an ex-gratia amount of around Rs 1 crore, but not a regular family pension or any other benefits.

The petition sought directions to the government to ensure equal posthumous benefits, including pensions, institutional recognition, and welfare measures for families of Agniveers who die in service. It also sought a direction to the authorities concerned to consider the petitioner’s request for these benefits to be extended to her family. The plea stated that Naik was recruited into the Indian Army in June 2023 under the Agnipath scheme.

After his death, his mother sent letters to several authorities, requesting that her family be granted the same benefits as those given to families of regular soldiers who die in the line of duty. However, she had yet to receive any reply, the petition claimed.

The petition further stated that while it isn’t challenging the validity of the Agnipath scheme in its entirety, the initiative was “discriminatory” and violated fundamental rights. “The scheme created an arbitrary and unreasonable classification between Agniveers and regular soldiers without any intelligible differentia,” it said.