No ‘martyr’ status to paramilitary personnel: Govt tells Delhi HC

The status of ‘martyr’ is not accorded to armed forces personnel, who sacrifice their lives on the line of duty, and hence, cannot be given to paramilitary forces, government has told the Delhi high court, terming a plea on the matter as “misconceived”.

“The prayer... to grant ‘martyr’ or ‘shaheed’ to Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) at par with Army, Navy and Air Force is misconceived as the same status is not being granted to the personnel of Army, Navy and Air Force,” a Bench of justices S Ravindra Bhat and Deepa Sharma was told.

In an affidavit, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and other ministries said the word ‘martyr’ was not used in the three services and “no such order/notification has been issued by the MoD to call martyr, (those) who are killed during duty. Similarly, no such notification has been issued by Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) for the CAPF and Assam Rifle (AR) personnel”.  The government’s response came on a PIL by advocates Abhishek Choudhary and Harsh Ahuja to grant equal status to paramilitary and police forces like the armed forces in granting ‘martyr’ status to the deceased personnel. 

The government said “in army/navy/air force, the nomenclature for the word 'martyr' is battle casualty and physical casualty. The word 'martyr' is not used in the three services."