The Bombay high court has directed the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to pay Rs 5 lakh as compensation to a 62-year-old woman who used to work with Armed Forces Medical Services (AFMS) for compulsorily retiring her after she approached court, seeking upgrade of her post.

A division bench of Justices V.M. Kanade and Revati Mohite Dere was hearing a petition filed by Sheila Rajan challenging the order passed by Director General of AFMS, MoD, refusing to upgrade her post from Group C to Group B.

In her petition, Ms Rajan, who joined AFMS as a speech therapist in 1971, said that the then Colonel in-charge of administration recommended that her post be upgraded but the same was rejected on grounds that only the Pay Commission could upgrade posts.

She then approached the central administrative tribunal (CAT) but before her matter could be heard, the Army passed an order of compulsory retirement against her in April 1992. What’s more, two of her increments were reduced.

“The facts disclose a very sorry state of affairs and we are pained to note that the respondents (MoD), instead of issuing a letter of appreciation for the work done by the petitioner, chose to punish her merely because she approached the court against inaction on their part,” said the judges.

“We express our extreme dissatisfaction over the conduct of the respondents in this particular case.

We propose to award compensation to the petitioner and direct the respondents to pay a sum of Rs 5 lakh to the petitioner within eight weeks,” directed the court.