NEW DELHI, Feb 8: October 5, 1991: A Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) search party laid ambush on militants at Nangal village in Kapurthala district. The terrorists opened fire. While others sought shelter, Jawan Pushkar Dutt Joshi retaliated. He was shot at in his stomach and legs, but continued firing till he killed one terrorist and forced the others to flee. He then crawled back to his colleagues, told them to take him to hospital and fell unconscious.Awarded the Police Medal for Gallantry in recognition of his exemplary act of bravery, the CRPF has no further use of Jawan Pushkar Dutt Joshi. Declared ``completely and permanently incapacitated'' by a medical board, he has been removed from service and given only Rs 1,500 from the Risk Fund of the Force. In official parlance, Joshi has been ``medically boarded out''.Today Joshi feels betrayed by the force to which he brought laurels. ``I cannot believe this has happened. If a jawan is rewarded like this for his bravery, who will join thecountry's defence forces and central police organisations. What is the use of standing in front of terrorists and facing their bullets? At the time, I thought it was better to die than run away. This is what I have got. I should have died,'' he says.Joshi, a class VIII dropout, got married six months before he was injured. Now, unable to have children, his wife is preparing to leave him. With no education, Joshi has nothing to fall back on.``He has been thrown out on the road. He was boarded out on May 15, 1996 after a medical board in Hyderabad found him physically unfit. But before that the officer-in-charge of the board should have fixed his pension, equivalent to the last salary drawn, plus an extraordinary pension. Joshi should also be compensated Rs 1.5 lakh already spent by him on prolonged treatment,'' says Deputy Commandant S K Madan, chief of the President's Police Gallantry Awardees' Association.Madan, who has taken up Joshi's case, alleges that his invalidation also violates theNational Disability (equal opportunities, protection of rights and full participation) Act, 1995. Quoting paragraph 47 of the Act, Madan says, Joshi cannot be removed till he is shifted to some other post with the same payscale. And if it is not possible to adjust him, he may be kept on a supernumerary post until a suitable post is available or he attains the age of superannuation, whichever is earlier.But the CRPF, the Border Security Force (BSF) and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, express helplessness. ``We function on the lines of the Army. We have to board out people who are no longer fit to perform duties,'' says Ajit Narayan, Inspector General, Administration, BSF.A senior CRPF official claims that the day-to-day functioning of the various group centres is already being affected with a number of vacancies being taken up by injured personnel. The invalid jawans can only be put at the group centres in static locations and the number of vacancies becomes a problem.``For example, there could be avacancy in Jammu but if the injured jawan belongs to Trivandrum, he prefers to stay near his home for treatment. Then he has to be adjusted there in place of somebody else, adversely affecting the functioning of the group. The post is blocked and we cannot hire anyone else till the injured is boarded out,'' he explains.About Joshi's case, he says, ``though he has appealed to us, calling the invalidation unjust and against the principles of natural justice, and demanded that he be accommodated in the force, there is nothing we can do.'' However, he admitted there was a lapse in fixing his pension and that it was being looked into.The procedure of examining an injured personnel and categorising him is a long one. ``After the injured person's treatment, a medical board examines him and he is graded in terms of percentage of disability. We try to retain him as far as possible but if he is not fit for anything, he is boarded out, but not before fixing his pension,'' says E N Ram Mohan, Director General,BSF.In some cases, the next of kin of the injured are provided jobs on compassionate grounds. ``But the biggest problem faced by all the Central Police Organisations is that the number of people being injured and killed is much more than the number of vacancies available,'' a CRPF officer confided.
