Orissa High Court Grants CRPF Veteran Disability Pension After 27-Year Battle Over Schizophrenia Claim

The Orissa High Court has set aside a 2011 decision that denied disability pension to a retired Central Reserve Police Force personnel who had been medically invalidated from service after being diagnosed with schizophrenia, and has ordered the authorities to grant the pension and pay the arrears.

Justice Biraja Prasanna Satapathy delivered the ruling on October 1, 2026, holding that the rejection could not stand in law because the CRPF’s own earlier invalidation order, passed in 1999, had already recorded the personnel’s entitlement to a 50 per cent disability pension. That order, the court noted, had never been modified or recalled.

The case turned on a long-running dispute over whether the former CRPF employee, who was retired on medical invalidation in 1999, was entitled to disability pension despite the later view of the authorities that schizophrenia was a “non-classified” disease for the purpose of Extraordinary Disability Pension under the CCS (Pension) Rules, 1972.

Medical invalidation in 1999

According to the judgment, the petitioner was allowed to retire on medical invalidation in 1999 after being diagnosed with schizophrenia. A medical board found him completely and permanently incapacitated for further service and recommended disability pension at 50 per cent.

The CRPF order sanctioning his invalidation retirement specifically stated that he would be entitled to disability pension from the date of invalidation. That detail became central to the court’s reasoning, because the petitioner’s later claim was rejected despite the existence of that earlier order.

Rejection of claim in 2011

In 2011, the authorities turned down his request for disability pension. They said schizophrenia was not a classified disease for the grant of Extraordinary Disability Pension under the applicable pension rules and also pointed out that he had not completed the required 10 years of qualifying service. On that basis, he was told that he was eligible only for service gratuity, which had already been paid to him.

The retired personnel approached the High Court after the rejection, asking that the 2011 order be quashed and that his disability pension be released.

Court finds denial unsustainable

Justice Satapathy noted that the petitioner had been sent out of service specifically on the ground of medical invalidation linked to schizophrenia, and that the medical board had found him permanently unfit for further duty. The judge emphasised that the 1999 order had expressly recognised his right to a 50 per cent disability pension from the date of invalidation.

“Taking into account the nature of the order passed and the grounds of rejection issued, this court is of the view that since the petitioner was allowed to take retirement on the ground of invalidation because of his…schizophrenia, on the ground that such a disease is not a classified disease, the petitioner’s claim could not have been rejected,” the court observed.

The court further held that the 2011 refusal was unsustainable because the original 1999 order had never been altered, withdrawn or recalled. It also held that the later denial was affected by the principle of promissory estoppel, given that the petitioner had been told at the time of invalidation retirement that he was entitled to disability pension.

Accordingly, the High Court quashed the 2011 rejection and directed the authorities to sanction the disability pension and release the arrears due to the petitioner. Published reports of the judgment have not named him.

The judgment was reported by The Indian Express on October 6, 2026.