In Brief
The Government of India extended the Swatantrata Sainik Samman Pension Scheme to Goa Liberation Movement participants with a cut-off date condition: only those receiving State Pension by 01.08.2002 were eligible. The respondent received State Pension only in 2008. He challenged this exclusion as arbitrary under Article 14. The Supreme Court upheld the scheme, holding that the cut-off date was deliberately fixed after government deliberation to prevent an open-ended scheme affecting approximately 3,500 persons. The Court found intelligible differentia and nexus with the scheme's object, as different eligibility criteria apply to State and central pensions. The respondent's ineligibility was justified.", <parameter name="subject_tags">["Constitutional Law", "Administrative Law", "Social Security Schemes", "Pension Law", "Freedom Fighters", "Article 14 - Equality"]
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