The Supreme Court has dismissed 271 appeals filed by the Centre challenging orders passed by the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) and various high courts for grant of disability pension to ex-servicemen within 15 years of retirement.Holding that the disability was “neither attributable nor aggravated” (NANA) by military service, the Release Medical Board (RMB) had dismissed the ex-servicemen’s disability claims. On appeal, the AFT/high courts, however, granted them disability pension, forcing the Centre to move the Supreme Court.The dispute centred around the interpretation of Entitlement Rules 2008 which made a significant departure from the Entitlement Rules 1982, particularly with respect to the presumption of sound health at entry into the service, burden of proof in disability pension claims, requirement of causal connection between the disability and military service, and the treatment of aggravation of pre-existing conditions.On behalf of the Centre, Attorney General R. Venkataramani argued that under the 2008 Rules a serviceman can’t claim disability automatically without showing causal connection with the service as the presumption of fitness available under the old 1982 Rules were gone.The ex-servicemen contended that though the 2008 Entitlement Rules did away with presumption of fitness, the core scheme and other beneficial provisions broadly remain untouched.After a comparative interpretation of the 1982 and 2008 Entitlement Rules, a Bench of Justice PS Narasimha and Justice Alok Aradhe said that even though the 2008 Rules removed the presumption that a soldier was fit at entry, the Army must still prove that the disability was neither attributable nor aggravated (NANA) by military service in order to deny disability pensions to servicemen.The top court said, “…even though Entitlement Rules 2008 removed the automatic presumption and strengthened the requirement of causal nexus, they did not dismantle the claimant-protective structure of the Rules, particularly the continued allocation of primary burden to the establishment and beneficial principles governing attributability, aggravation and reasonable doubt.”It said, “…mere addition of a causal requirement and a removal of the presumption that when a member joins service healthy, and, if, he leaves with a disability, it ought to be attributable to the military service, does not, by itself, change the core scheme of the Entitlement Rules 2008 because the other beneficial provisions broadly remain untouched.“The onus to prove that the member’s disability is not attributable to service still lies on the employer. The relevant rules regarding attributability and aggravation continue to hold that if the cause of disability is unknown, and presumption of attributability is not rebutted, then the disability is attributable to service,” it said on Wednesday, dismissing the Centre’s petitions.Referring to a 2015 Defence Ministry report on denial of disability benefits to soldiers on hyper-technical reasons, the Bench lamented the non-implementation of the report’s recommendation for immediate withdrawal of such cases by the government against disabled soldiers. The 2015 report said many disabled soldiers in India were still denied disability benefits on hyper-technical reasons while the other countries moved ahead.“It is important to realise that there is inherent stress and strain in military service. In all democracies, disabilities arising in service or during authorized leave are considered as attributable or aggravated by military service,” the report had said.