Bengaluru:

He sacrificed his youth fighting for India’s independence against the British rule and went to jail on several occasions, including the ‘Quit India Movement’; The autumn of his life he had to fight brought a different struggle -— a series of legal battles against government authorities to get his discontinued pension restored.

After being a part of historic freedom struggle, H.B. Kolyappa, who is currently in his mid-nineties and resides in Chitradurga, had to literally fight the ‘system’ to prove that he was a genuine freedom fighter, to avail his ‘discontinued’ pension given to freedom fighters.

Kolyappa emerged winner only after his third round of legal battle against the authorities, who had discontinued his freedom fighters pension. The high court directed the authorities to continue the pension within six weeks.

The freedom fighter had approached the court seeking directions to the authorities to continue the payment of freedom fighters pension. He had claimed before the court of having participated in the ‘Quit India Movement’ in the year 1942 and also in ‘Mysore Chalo Movement’ in 1947. After taking all this into consideration Kolyappa was awarded freedom fighters pension.

However, in the year 2009, the authorities concerned intimated the office of the Accountant General (A & E) Karnataka, to cancel and recover the pension granted to the petitioner.

The authorities had stated that the nature of the claim made by Kolyappa was not admissible. He had produced the ‘co-prisoner’s certificate’ of Bellary Siddamma, ex-MLA on the ground of non-availability of records and certificate. Kolyappa then approached the high court, but his petition was dismissed.

In the second round of legal battle, he filed an appeal and after careful consideration, the division bench allowed his appeal while directing the authorities to continue the pension. However, the state government authorities felt that it is was a proper case for re-verification.  A notice was issued to the petitioner in this regard and since the petitioner did not produce any satisfactory document to support his claim, the authorities declined to restore the pension.

However he did not lose heart and approached the court for the third time. This time the court stated, “When a positive direction had been issued by a division bench of this court to restore the pension, the observation made in the communication dated that despite the said order, the claim of the petitioner does not appear to be genuine, cannot be countenanced by this court inasmuch as the same would amount to an attempt by the state authorities as well as the respondent authorities to overreach the decision of this court.”

“Since the division bench has already issued a direction to restore the honorarium — the freedom fighters pension to the petitioner, the order shall be followed by the respondents as expeditiously as possible, but not later than six weeks from the date of receipt of a copy of this order,” the court ordered.

source: http://www.deccanchronicle.com / Deccan Chronicle / Home> News> Current Affairs / DC / by Shashiprasad S.M / November 10th, 2013