50 years after discharge for psychiatric disorder, soldier gets disability benefits

Fifty years after being invalidated out of the Army on medical grounds for psychiatric disorders, a soldier has been granted disability benefits after the Armed Forces Tribunal held that a disability — even if initially assessed as temporary — must be considered permanent because the individual would never be able to re-join service even if their level of disability reduces later.

The soldier, Sali Ram Arya, was enrolled in the Corps of Signals in July 1965 and in 1975, he was found to be suffering from ‘manic depressive psychosis’. Thereafter, he was brought before an invaliding medical board in October 1975, which assessed the disability to be 40 per cent for two years, but held it to be neither attributable to nor aggravated by military service.

Accordingly, he was invalided from ser