Mumbai, July 7 -- The Centre on Monday told the Bombay high court that Agniveers cannot claim parity with regular soldiers in service benefits, arguing that they constitute a distinct category of military personnel engaged for only four years under a separate policy framework. Stating that "Agniveers and regular soldiers do not constitute a homogeneous class", the Centre said the classification is based on an intelligible differentia, including the nature of recruitment, duration of service, purpose and objective of engagement, pension structure and retention mechanism. "Parity in long-term institutional benefits for two individuals who are differently placed in terms of length of engagement, reserve liability and long-term threat exposure, even if they face similar threats in immediate situations, cannot be sought by comparison," the Centre said in an affidavit. The submission came in response to a petition filed by the mother of Agniveer M Murali Naik, who was killed in cross-border shelling at Poonch during Operation Sindoor in May last year. The petition, filed through senior advocate Prakash Ambedkar along with advocates Sandesh More, Hemant Ghadigaonkar and Hitendra Gandhi, said that under the present policy framework, an Agniveer and his family are not entitled to any form of pension or lifelong family welfare benefits upon completion of service or in the event of death during service. "Pension is not an inherent right and can only be claimed where specifically provided by law," the affidavit stated....