The Orissa High Court on Tuesday ordered the state government to give a 101 -year -old man to a freedom Saik Samman Pension (Pension of Freedom Fighter), who first applied for it in 1981, saying that the government claimed that it manipulated the electoral roll to increase its age by 10 years.
Justice Sasikant Mishra said that the government had argued that Brahmin Jena increased the age of 10 years in the list of voters to get pension benefits under the scheme, but the above stand was placed before the court to justify the above stand.
“Even a glimpse of an inquiry, the conclusion drawn by the authority is nothing, but there is an estimate. Even otherwise, it will be far away to an old man to implement such behavior. This court has considered more than one opportunity that it is the state’s most difficult duties, which is to ensure that the freedom is done to ensure that it is a trivial Mishra.
Jena of Nigarh district applied for pension in February 1981, citing his participation in leaving the post of India in 1942. The Ministry of Home Affairs pushed forward its case to the Odisha government in May 1984, and later applied to the Finance Department of the state directly in July 1989.
His request remained unlike October 9, 2002, when the Odisha government determined that the freedom fighters would have applied for pension before August 27, 1990, and that they would have turned at least 18 years by 1942 – which means that they should have been born before 1924.
Jena presented affidavits from two freedom fighters-fighters-Khali Pradhan and Manguli Parida-“He remained underground for more than a year during 1942-43”. District Treasury Officer, Nigarh verified his signature as authentic.
But Jena’s application was not accepted. He resumed the application in March 2019, but the authorities had doubts about their age claims.
The state government argued that Jena manipulated his age in the 2002 voter list, claiming that he managed to increase his age by ten years to meet the eligibility requirements “. It was also noted that the 2002 list listed him as 82 years of age, the list before 1988 and 1995 indicated that he was 72 years old, and the 1999 list indicated that he was only 68 as of January 1, 2002.
