The Aurangabad Bench of the Bombay High Court recently upheld a state government order, which rejected the claim of a 78-year-old man for Sanmaan Pension — a freedom fighter pension for having taken part as an underground volunteer in Hyderabad Mukti Sangram of 1948. The order said that the man had not submitted any evidence of hardship or problems he suffered and therefore rejected his claim.
The court said that there should have been a case of the dispensation of the required documents, and the authority should believe that the claim is genuinely based on other material available, however, in the present case, the petitioner failed to prove that and dismissed the plea.
A division bench of Justice RD Dhanuka and Justice SG Mehare on May 6 passed the verdict on the plea filed by Kanhuji Hivrale. The plea sought to quash and set aside a communication dated November 19, 2015, by the General Administrative Department, Freedom Fighter Section of the Maharashtra government rejecting his claim for Sanmaan pension Hivrale, through advocate VS Panpatte claimed that he struggled for freedom during Mukti Sangram and was campaigning against the erstwhile Nizam Government by collecting funds for movement, supplying arms and weapons to workers, supplying information about police movements, arranging for attacks on police and other allied activities.
Hivrale said that he worked underground under the leadership of veteran freedom fighters between 1947-48 and was never caught by police and claimed that late freedom fighter Lata Jaiswal had even issued a certificate of participation in the movement to him.
He said that he applied for Maharashtra Government’s ‘Swatantraya Sainik Sanman Pension’ in 2003 and had fulfilled conditions for the entitlement of the scheme and a district-level committee in 2008 had recommended his name to the state government for pension.
However, the state government rejected it prompting him to approach High Court in 2010.
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