NEW DELHI: Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday tweeted a letter from Army Headquarters that appeared to justify unexpected withdrawal of tax exemption for disabled veterans. The letter claims that some retired personnel are ‘exploiting’ the system.A recent notification by the Central Board of Direct Taxation reversed a decades-old privilege given to disabled soldiers that exempted them from income tax. This created an uproar among veterans, forcing the finance ministry to release the letter, suggesting that the recommendation came from the Army HQ itself.The unsigned letter, shared on the Twitter account of Sitharaman, blames some “unscrupulous personnel” for exploiting the system for personal gain and justifies the change in policy.“Disability is granted to personnel who are disabled in combat or during peace time and their disability is attributable to service conditions. It is totally unbelievable,” Major Navdeep Singh (retd), a lawyer who takes up cases of soldiers’ welfare, said.Major DP Singh, an amputee of Kargil war and a veteran who bounced back as India’s first ‘blade runner’, tweeted on Tuesday: “Time to relook service disability from (a) more positive angle. Curbing is not a solution but finding road blocks & mending that is.”It may be recalled that the matter was raised in Parliament last week, with defence minister Rajnath Singh promising to look into the matter.

Source: Economic Times July 03, 2019 03:12 UTC