Supreme Court laments plight of a freedom fighter

The Supreme Court on Thursday castigated the Tamil Nadu government for refusing to grant pension to a bona fide freedom fighter.

“Whatever pension they get is a pittance, and many of those who apply for it are under financial distress. But everybody without exception wears it as a badge of honour and as a certificate of recognition of their efforts in the struggle for independence,” a bench of justices Harjit Singh Bedi and TS Thakur said.

The judges dismissed an appeal filed by the Tamil Nadu government, challenging a Madras high court order that directed it to pay freedom fighters’ pension to one A Manickam Pillai. The high court (HC) had, on June 26, 2006, found Pillai to be a bona fide freedom fighter who needed the pension. HC had found that two district collectors and a district-level screening committee had certified that Pillai was a freedom fighter and had been imprisoned during the independence movement.

The HC had pointed out that though the TN government did not deny that Pillai was a freedom fighter, it did not give him the pension because his plea had not been accompanied by a certificate from a co-prisoner authorised by the government to vouch for Pillai.

Instead, Pillai had appended a certificate by another co-prisoner. Though this co-prisoner hadn’t been authorised by the government, he had given details of Pillai’s role in the freedom struggle and had spoken vividly of the time they spent in jail. Despite this, the Tamil Nadu government did not grant Pillai his pension